


The fighter

by J_Antebellum



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: Depression, F/F, Recovery, Romance, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:20:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 27,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23283910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/J_Antebellum/pseuds/J_Antebellum
Summary: A fighter is someone who keeps getting back up, no matter what. A fighter falls and falls hard, but all they know is to punch back, to keep facing adversity, to resist, to prepare for the worst and keep going, always.Ashlyn Harris was a fighter. But she wondered if she'd live to see the other side of this fight.
Relationships: Ashlyn Harris/Ali Krieger
Comments: 56
Kudos: 56





	1. A happy family

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone!
> 
> Hoping you're all taking good care of yourselves with this Covid madness. I've ran out of the UK, where I've been living for a few months now, and returned to my hometown to support my family through these difficult times. Now I'm in lockdown ;)
> 
> Even though you probably hate me if you've been following my other fics and seen I've barely updated in the past year, I'm happy to finally announce I wrote ten fanfics, all Krashlyn, in the past year. One of them even has a part 2, so it's actually eleven fanfics. So anyway, now that we have these hard times I think all of us in lockdown locked in our flats for minimum a month will appreciate having stuff to read and get entertained, even if it's just fics, so I think it's the best moment to bring all the stories at once. Enjoy!
> 
> Also if you want to talk with me, ask when the next chapter pops or whatever, I'm jantebellum in Tumblr, so feel free to message me or send some anon over there!
> 
> Much love xx

Laughter echoed in the Krieger-Harris household, and was suddenly interrupted by a long moan as Ashlyn won her bet and made Ali come undone before the ten seconds had passed. They had been making love for several hours, and were now in a delirious stage where they were so relaxed and happy anything made them giggle and they just felt cheerful and in some sort of silly mood.

“Not so fast Kriegs,” Ashlyn wrapped her strong, tattooed arms around her wife's frame from behind and attempted to kiss every mole on Ali's back, as the brunette tried to make it to the bathroom, needing urgently to pee.

“Baby, I'm going to pee myself,” Ali warned with a smile, throwing her head back as Ashlyn's lips found her neck.

“Promise you'll come back?”

“To that talented mouth and those large, wonderful hands? You bet I will.”

“Fine...” Ashlyn separated, but still pinched Ali's ass as the brunette jumped off the bed, grinning foolishly in love as she saw her favourite person rush to the bathroom, her long, messy hair waving behind her.

They were celebrating. They had won the Olympics and the NWSL, recently returned home from their delayed honeymoon, and Ali was pregnant. It was too soon to tell anyone, but they had just gotten the thumbs up from the doctor announcing after going through In Vitro Fertilization, using Ashlyn's eggs and an anonymous donor's sperm and two weeks before, they had inserted the fertilized embryo into Ali. Now they knew it had hatched, it had worked, there was a healthy embryo becoming a little person inside of Ali. They had long debated going for multiple children at once, feeling the ticking clock and getting impatient about wanting a big family already, but the doctor had warned that with Ali close to her thirty-seventh birthday and multiple childbirth always having a bigger level of risk, it would just be an unnecessary risk for mother and babies if they were multiple. The embryo could still divide into identical twins or triplets, but they hoped it wouldn't happen. They wanted to adopt anyway, Ali just really wanted to feel what a pregnancy was like and live that experience and the younger the better, but adopted children would definitely come eventually.

“Now where were we?” Ali smiled with her tongue between her teeth, returning to the bed and wrapping her arms around Ashlyn's neck before kissing her hard. She loved the feeling of Ashlyn's large hands extending on her back, making her feel like Ashlyn was all wrapped around her.

“My face hurts from smiling so much,” Ashlyn admitted as they pulled apart for air. Her lips were by then completely numb.

“Are you happy love?” Ali asked, knowing the answer, but loving to hear it. Ashlyn had had it so rough in her life, she could never get tired of hearing how happy she, Ali, made her. She deserved happiness.

“God I'm so fucking happy. I never knew one could be this happy, I'm over the fucking galaxy,” Ashlyn grinned, making her snigger. “I married the most incredible, wonderful person to ever walk on this Earth, I got her to love me unconditionally, I have the two cutest dogs ever, the most homiest of homes, got a perfect retirement game with the National Team, a perfect wedding, a perfect honeymoon... this is it, all my craziest dreams are true. I can't ask for anything else.”

Ali beamed so hard her cheeks hurt, and kissed her again. They had both retired from the National Team at last, still playing for their club, Orlando Pride, but deciding this would be their final year there. They had separate, fantastic final games with the USWNT post Olympics, although it was a heartbreaking week for the team and the fans; Ashlyn retired one Wednesday, and Ali that Sunday. They wanted to start a family. They were ready.

“You're my whole life,” Ali cupped her face with one hand, using it to press her lips repeatedly against the other side of her face, covering her in kisses. “I'm nothing without you. I love you so, so much, you're going to be such a great Mama.”

Ashlyn kissed her hard, slumping back onto the mattress lying over her, and then kissed her again, before separating, grinning, hovering over her. She was so excited.

“What are you hoping we'll have? I know you always wanted a girl.”

“At this point I don't even care, as long as they're happy and healthy and born in the gender they feel they have. For all I care we could have a dinosaur, honestly.”

“That would be so cool!” Ali laughed, her laugh interrupted by more kisses. “Or a shark...” Ashlyn's voice returned, her lips separating from hers for a moment. Ali's laugh escalated volume and she playfully slapped her arm. They just couldn't stop joking and laughing.

A few days later, they decided they could stop training for one day and go visit Ashlyn's family in Satellite Beach, just a couple of hours' drive from their house. They hadn't seen them in a while, having spent the holidays in New Zealand and the Seychelles after their honeymoon, which meant they had spent about a month just outside the country seeing the world and hadn't seen the family. Debbie had come by for a weekend when they arrived back in Orlando, but they were yet to see anyone of Ashlyn's family, and a trip to Satellite Beach meant seeing everybody, surfing, going to the beach a lot, walking around in bikini and flip-flops and being far from paparazzi.

So they packed their bags for a surprise visit, put the dogs in the back of Ashlyn's car, and drove away, music low in the car but their voices loud as they sang along. Ali loved it when they went to Ashlyn's hometown and the goalkeeper looked to be just in her element, more so than usual.

Because Ashlyn's parents were divorced and the family was large, they usually had plenty of options to pick someone to stay with. Christopher had just gotten engaged, so they decided not to go to his, as Ashlyn wanted to avoid hearing his brother having sex; her cousin Corey had a small house so they didn't fit comfortably, and her father was on a work trip but would be back the next day, so it was better to go to her Mum's, who had a good house where they fit nicely. Ashlyn's childhood home, like Ali's, had been sold when they were teens, so it wasn't available anymore.

The dogs ran to Tammye's door the minute they were out of the car and parked in the driveway behind Tammye's car, and Ashlyn grinned.

“Someone's excited to see Grandma,” Ashlyn pointed out, strolling to the door with Ali's hand in hers as the dogs barked away.

“Wait until we tell her she's actually going to have a human Grandchild,” Ali said excitedly. They weren't planning on doing that just yet, but would soon enough, when the risk of miscarriage descended. Ashlyn grinned at the idea, nevertheless, her dimple showing. “God I hope our baby has that dimple,” Ali added pinching it affectionately.

“Everyone in my family has a dimple, it'd be weird if they didn't,” Ashlyn kissed her hand and pressed the doorbell. “Come on girls, calm down so Grandma can hear me. Mum! Surprise, it's us!” she shouted pressing the doorbell again. They waited for a moment, but heard no sound inside, not even as Ali managed to calm the dogs down. “Weird, I figured she'd be here, the car's here.”

“Maybe she went to see your Grandparents,” a lot of Ashlyn's family lived within a strolling distance. “Do you have keys, or do we have to wait here? It's getting chilly with this ocean breeze.” It smelled of ocean, which was nice, but not so much to start to feel chilly.

“Alexandra Krieger, you being chilly in Florida? You?” Ashlyn teased, pulling her keys from her pocket. “Worry not my princess, I surely have some keys. I remember Mum made me a copy when she badly twisted her ankle last year and coming to open up was too much hustle with the crutches.” She commented, finding the key and sliding it into the keyhole.

“Ah, yeah I remember that. Gee, her ankle was the size of a melon, it was strange it didn't break.”

“Right? Damn lucky,” as soon as Ashlyn opened the door enough, both dogs burst in, barking. “Wow, someone's _really_ excited. She's not here girls...”

“Let them be, maybe they have to run for the toilet,” Ali joked, walking inside behind her.

The house had a wonderful scent of Tammye's perfume and cinnamon that to Ashlyn just meant home, and immediately felt cosy and homey. They dropped the bags in the entry and then noticed the dogs were really barking hard.

“Okay that's it, they're going to piss off the whole Space Coast,” Ashlyn murmured, frowning and going after the dogs. “Logan, Storm, quiet down! It's finished!” However when she spotted both dogs barking at her mother's bedroom door, both of them with the hair up in an unusual fashion, she got a bad feeling. “Ali? Something's wrong!”

“What's up?” Ali rushed to her as Ashlyn rushed to the door and opened it up. Ali immediately gasped and put her hands on her mouth, eyes wide in horror, and Ashlyn ran inside.

“CALL 911! ALEX, CALL 911 NOW!”

  
  



	2. A mother's choice

**Chapter 2: A mother's choice.**

The machine to which Tammye was hooked fought to keep her alive, all the while beeping for the family's relief, as it signalled she was still alive. Ashlyn had held her to keep her alive, despite her muscles' protests, while Ali hurried to get a knife and cut the sheets with which the older woman had hung herself from the ceiling fan that, miraculously, hadn't fallen and squashed Tammye against the bed. It had taken the ambulance fifteen long minutes to arrive from the peninsula, and the whole time Ashlyn had been performing CPR on her own mother, not giving up. She still had a weak pulse, and luckily hadn't broken her neck, but the doctors, although they had managed to stabilize her, didn't know how the lack of proper oxygen flow, for God knows how long, to the brain, could have affected her. Tammye could perfectly well be mentally disabled now.

“You saved her life,” Mike had come in a hurry after Ali had called him while they waited in the hospital as the doctors attended Mrs Harris, and just the sound of her voice had been enough to scare Mike to death. He now rubbed Ashlyn's back comfortingly up and down, as they stared at Tammye standing by her bedside in the ICU. She hadn't really uttered a word since they had found her mother, limiting herself to nodding or shaking her head if Ali asked her anything. It was as if the shook and fright had been so great that she had gulped her tongue.

“She shouldn't have had to do so,” Christopher, standing with them, shook his head, arms crossed over his chest. “What kind of therapist does Mum have, that didn't see this coming and put her in the hospital?”

Eighty percent of Ashlyn's whole family, including both sides, all uncles and aunts, and cousins, had mental health issues. It was a hard truth that had initially shocked Ali, even more when all of them seemed so happy, but it was part of the reason why Ashlyn's childhood had been rough. Both of her grandfathers had been soldiers, and so her parents and their siblings had been raised lovingly, with kindness, but still with a bit of a hard hand because the world was so hard then, there had been war, and they had to learn life is hard and toughen up. And where there seemed to be some sort of genetic predisposition for depression, it seemed like Ashlyn's parents and some of their siblings, in the Satellite Beach of back in those days, when the town was quite poor, had succumbed to such predisposition encouraged by the hardship of life. It didn't matter that both of Ashlyn's grandparents had helped their children and encouraged them, they didn't know what it was like to be so young in such world and struggle so much just to make a decent living. They already had their lives.

And so for Ashlyn and Christopher, both of their parents developed an intense depression that affected their mother the most. While their father had a period of anger issues and verbal violence, as he had tremendous anxiety while trying to keep a decently paid job without being able to have a University degree -he wasn't so good with academics- just to feed his family, their mother struggled hard with depression, with their poverty, and even though she did manage more years in university than her husband, Ashlyn was still the first Harris in generations to get a University degree, so it meant Tammye hadn't quite achieved it. Tammye then suffered the tremendous sexism of the time and could hardly get a job unless it was a man's secretary, a man's this, a man's that. So she worked in administration stuff, secretary, and yet struggled with her mental health just like her husband, as it became harder and harder to provide for a growing family. They had once been young, carefree and in love, but in the early 90s and 2000s the Space Coast's poverty levels had risen, and they had two children they could barely feed, and so food stamps had been used. Tammye had become an alcoholic, both she and Mike started to smoke like chimneys, and when as a teenager Christopher became a serious drug addict and a burglar, their stress levels had spiked a lot. Mike had eventually done therapy and recovered a lot, and Tammye had been convinced to join therapy as well, after their divorce, and had been doing it since, but she always seemed to be, like Ashlyn, a tender sponge so empathetic she'd feel everything too much, and that was just how their DNA worked. And so both of them were pretty much in therapy for life. Both of them had been suicidal at times, or done self-harm, but both of them had been very stable for the last decade, a very much thriving, so Tammye's suicide attempt came as a surprise, but they were pretty sure it could only be a suicide attempt.

“Perhaps she didn't tell the therapist she wasn't feeling all right. She didn't tell any of you,” Ali pointed out, keeping one of Ashlyn's hands clasped between her own, tenderly squeezing it now and then to comfort her. “In any case is no one's fault. She's mentally ill, she's been for decades, sometimes no matter the treatment, is still not enough.”

“It's possible she accidentally missed a dose of anti-depressants, or that... yeah, that it wasn't enough,” Mike contributed.

Ashlyn didn't say anything, but moved closer to her mother and squeezed her hand gently, leaning to kiss her forehead and caress her curly hair with her free hand. Her mother was like a little child sometimes, so tender and emotionally fragile, so hurt by years of pain until whatever hard skin she once had just peeled off.

“We love you Mummy. We'll be right here, and when you get better, we'll take you home and we'll take good care of us. You'll feel better soon, I promise.” She whispered gently.

Truth was, though, that she may never get better. The doctors said it was too early to tell, but thought it was possible Tammye had been without getting proper oxygen flow to the brain long enough to have serious brain damage.

“I'll stay the night,” Ali said gently, caressing Ashlyn's hair. “You go home and rest, uh?” she suggested.

“No, I'll stay,” argued Ashlyn.

“But Ash...”

“I cannot really leave,” Ashlyn turned to her wife. “I have to make sure she comes through.”

“Okay,” Ali sighed, nodding. “In that case I should go. We left the dogs locked in your Mum's house, they're probably starved and may have peed inside.”

“Damn, you're right, the dogs...” Ashlyn had forgotten about their girls. “Sure, don't worry.”

“I'll see you tomorrow. I'll bring breakfast, uh? And if anything happens...”

“I will call you. Go,” Ashlyn pecked her lips. “It'll be all right.”

“Okay. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Ali turned to the men.

“I could give you a ride,” Ali offered, pointing at her watch. “Visitation time is over, they said only one is allowed overnight.”

“Right,” Chris sighed. “It's fine, I left my car outside... I'll go home and call that therapist, see what she knows.”

“I could use the ride, I came straight from the airport by taxi,” Mike said, and went to kiss his daughter's cheek. “Take care love, see you in the morning okay?”

“Goodnight Dad, Chris, send my love to Mikayleigh.”

The night in the ICU was long. Every now and then someone would start crashing and all the doctors would run to a bed close by, so Ashlyn could hardly close her eyes. She stared at her mother, currently on breathing support as she hadn't recovered consciousness yet, and began to dwell on what could've possibly happened. How long had she been suicidal again? Had she told anyone? Had she been planning her death for months, even when Ashlyn told her they were on the process of trying to have a child, and she had been so excited about being a grandmother to an actual human? Or had it been sudden?

The light in the ICU was very low, to let patients' rest, so it took Ashlyn a long moment to notice there was something wrong with her mother. Part of her face seemed to have dropped a little, to have lost firmness. Deciding it was better to be safe than sorry, Ashlyn stood up to find a nurse, and saw one updating some papers at the nurses' desk.

“Excuse me...” Ashlyn said gently. It was past four in the morning, she couldn't be rude.

“Yes?” the nurse stopped writing and looked up.

“It may be nothing, but my mother, Tammye Harris, she's in bed four... well, her face seems to have dropped. Like a melted candle. Could you maybe take a look?”

The nurse frowned and walked to said bed, checking the patient. Her frown turned into a scowl, she turned back to Ashlyn.

“I'll call someone from neuro. It's better she's checked by a specialist.”

“Okay, thank you.”

A few minutes later, a doctor appeared, introduced to Ashlyn and checked Tammye. Then, with a sigh, looked at the nurse.

“Is her main doctor here tonight?”

“No, will arrive at six though, so in a couple hours.”

“All right... well page them. Tell them it's time to come.”

“What's wrong?” Ashlyn intervened.

“Ms—,”

“Mrs Harris. I'm a married woman,” Ashlyn corrected. “Please just tell me.”

“Your mother's face has in fact dropped, possibly because of a stroke. It might've been due to an aneurysm, as when she was hanging, the sheets compressed the veins and arteries in her neck and it could've damaged them, creating an aneurysm. We'll need further tests to know exactly how it happened.”

“So what does this mean?”

“It means that, unfortunately... the stroke has caused your mother to be brain dead,” the doctor explained. “There's nothing we could've done. All of this could've happened in just a minute. I'm so sorry.”

Ashlyn scowled, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Sorry? But she's breathing, look,” she pointed to the bed, “she's fine. You'll fix her brain, right?”

“Mrs Harris, it's too late. Your mother is only breathing because the machines are breathing for her. The brain has died, it no longer works,” the doctor tried to make her understand. “It cannot be resuscitated, and the body can't function without the brain. It's in charge of commanding the heart and lungs to work, and every other organ... without it, your mother only breathes because a tube inflates air into her lungs like a balloon, it's no different, the moment it stops... she's dead.”

Ashlyn felt horrified listening to his words, but she couldn't just accept it.

“Then don't turn the machines off. Let them keep her breathing.”

“Then it wouldn't be any different than plugging a pump into a corpse to make its chest move. Mrs Harris, it doesn't matter what we do, your mother's condition is irreversible. This machine can keep her chest moving, but your mother's body has already started to shut down, and there isn't a way to stop it. Her organs will begin to fail one by one, and in a day or two she'll be in full organ failure. But if you turn the machine off now... first off, she won't suffer a slow, painful death—,”

“If her brain doesn't work then she cannot feel pain,” Ashlyn cut him sharply.

“Good point,” the doctor realized, tired. “If you turn the machine off now, your mother can save a few dozen lives, while her other organs are still functioning. Look around you in this room. A bunch of these people can be discharged next week just with new organs.”

“Shut up,” Ashlyn snapped. “I want her doctor. Her doctor's good, will know what to do.”

She walked back to her mother and sat on the stool by her bed, putting a protective arm over her chest, her eyes glassy in anger, frustration and sadness.

“Don't worry Mummy, I'm not letting anybody kill you. I'll get you a proper doctor, someone good, and you'll be fine. These people know nothing,” Ashlyn kissed her cheek. “You just rest and get stronger, I'll keep an eye on you, I won't let them come close.”

In any case, she was forced to phone her father, brother and wife and let them know what was happening, so they came running, arriving at the same time as the main doctor. This other doctor was more delicate and offered to run a CT to properly confirm if she was really as brain dead and it seemed, and they agreed, hoping for the best.

  
  



	3. Hope is not for us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I do apologize because this is very sad...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DISCLAIMER:
> 
> All of this is FICTION. Even when there are characters named after and inspired on real people, and even when there might be real locations and historical events. It's still a FICTIONAL story, and it's not meant to detriment, insult or hurt anyone, but only with the purpose of entertainment.
> 
> I think we can all use some entertainment in our lives through these difficult times. I don't know you, but I've lost nearly everything over Covid. I no longer have a job, a career, and all my professional plans for this year are, as for now, cancelled. I can't even make any future professional plans as for now. I literally had to pack my bags, leave my first house since I moved out from my childhood home, and leave my friends there, my life there, everything, for God knows how long, so I could return home and take care of my elderly mother less than a week ago. And now I'm fighting to stay healthy so I can keep her healthy and take care of her, while we live on our savings, that's all we have left. And writing brings me a little bit of joy and for what I see, reading brings you a bit of joy too, and I think we can all use as much joy now as we can get. So that's the only purpose of fanfiction for me, nothing else, and certainly, nothing moved by some "white saviour complex" or a desire to deprecate anyone or anything.
> 
> Thank you all for your support and your comments. We will get through this, I don't know how, I don't know when, but we will. Trust me on this.

**Chapter 3: Hope is not for us.**

Tammye's main doctor, a neurosurgeon, came to them as they sat in the waiting room while a series of tests were conducted on her. It was a sober-looking room with pale green chairs, and they had been sitting quietly, too anxious and worried to talk. For Ashlyn and Ali, this had been intended to be a nice surprise, a weekend to relax by the beach... now all they could think of was, what if they had opened the door ten minutes earlier? What if they hadn't given the dogs an extra long walk before getting in the car, and had arriver an hour sooner? Maybe Tammye would still be alive. They would've comforted her.

“I'm afraid it's not good news,” the doctor said looking sad. “Mrs Harris truly is brain dead, I'm so, so sorry. What my colleague said was right, so unfortunately... there's nothing we can do to help her anymore.”

“Are you seriously going to tell me that in 2021 you don't have technologies to help her?” Ashlyn snapped angrily, and Ali wrapped her arms around her midsection, trying partially to restrain her.

“Just like we can't resuscitate the dead, which is the same thing, I'm afraid,” the doctor replied. “I understand referring to it as brain death can be confusing but... it's just death. Really, the only difference is that begins in the brain instead of the heart. But without the brain, the heart cannot function, and although you can get a heart transplant in some cases, you can never get a brain transplant, so in the end... same result. I know it's a terrible situation but... your mother is dead, she just found death in a different route than people whose hearts stop. If for any reason the machine stopped working, her heart would stop within minutes. However... we could keep the machine working for a little while and... we could save her organs. Those parts of her could still live on, in someone else who needs that to live.”

“Can we...” Mike took over, wrapping an arm around each of his offspring. “Can we think about it for a little while? Tammye and I are divorced, so this is my children's decision and it's not an easy one for them.”

“Of course, you can go be with her for now. If that's the case, you both have to agree on whatever decision you make. I cannot do anything if one of you disagrees.”

Ashlyn seemed frozen, so Ali, whose intense sadness had been kept under control by an intense need to protect and take care of her wife and their family, guided her back to the room, and they sat around her. Christopher also looked shocked, and Mike's eyes were glassy, but like Ali managed to keep his cool and enter some warrior mode in which protecting the other two came first.

They sat in silence for a long time, until Mike spoke.

“Ash, Chris... listen,” he held one hand of each, looking from one to the other, “no one should have to make this sort of decision, this is a terrible thing to go through, I get it. But your mother is tired. She's been sad and struggling for so many years, battling the demons in her brain so hard and still getting beaten down... I don't know what happened to her yesterday morning, but I know she just wanted it all to end. She wanted to rest. She wasn't afraid of death, she just... she had had enough. Now, I know this is a horrible situation but... don't you think we should, loving her as much as we do, take her out of her misery? Because even if she could come back by some miracle, what for? She'd have severe brain damage, could probably not leave the bed, talk, or do anything, she'd be more depressed and struggling than ever... it'd be a bit cruel to force her to that sort of life, that's not really living, just for us to feel better having her here. To me it feels like letting her go, as soon as possible... it's only mercy. It's being compassionate of her, it's respecting her wish to die, it's giving her the rest she deserves. And she'll go to heaven, and she'll be with her Mum and Dad. We could take turns to bid farewell, call your Uncle Jimbo so he can say goodbye to his sister too, and we could stay, support her and help her one last time into her final trip, uh?”

Christopher released a sob and nodded, as his father squeezed his hand, releasing it to rub his back.

“She's done it all for us. She's stayed around all these years despite her suffering for us. The least we could do is let her go, I don't want her to suffer anymore, not for anyone,” he said, with eyes full of tears. “But we really should call Uncle Jimbo. And I'll call Mikayleigh as well, she's been meaning to come, but was stuck at work. She'll come now.”

He hurriedly left the room, and Ali suspected he was going to have a proper cry. She herself had to take a deep breath to avoid crying, and turned to Ashlyn, gently caressing her face.

“What do you say, love?” Ali asked, with the gentlest of tones.

“I can't kill her,” Ashlyn murmured, eyes full of tears.

“You're not killing her,” reassured Ali. “You're just letting the inevitable happen. It will happen no matter what we do, sweetie, the choice here is whether to prolong everyone's suffering with the wait... or let it happen and try our best to move on.”

“But I saved her life. I held her while you cut the ropes. I did CPR for so long my wrists still hurt,” a sob escaped Ashlyn's lips and Ali would never forget the pain and hurt across her face when she looked at Ali. “How am I supposed to just let her die before my eyes and do nothing now?”

Heartbroken for her wife, and, having she almost lost her father a year and a half before, understanding her pain perfectly well, Ali took her free hand between her own and kissed her knuckles softly.

“I'll help you, okay?” Ali offered. “We'll do it together, all of us. You've done well, you bought her and all of us time to assimilate this and say goodbye... now you need to let her go, because you love her so much you want her to go to heaven and rest in peace.”

“Heaven doesn't exist,” Ashlyn sobbed out. “And if it did... people who commit suicide don't get to go there...”

“A woman like your mother will surely be accepted into heaven,” Ali reassured her. “And if it doesn't exist, at least she'll rest, and maybe, like your Dad said, she'll be with her own parents. She'll be okay.”

“Think of it as granting her final wish,” Mike suggested, tenderly squeezing her hand. “You did an amazing job to give us a chance to say goodbye, but now she needs our help sweetie. She needs to know it's okay, that we understand... but we have each other. We'll be all right, and she'll be in peace.”

They decided to just sit quietly and give her time to process, until eventually Ashlyn agreed. Ali feared, watching as she signed her constant, that she may never recover from something like this, but once the rest of Tammye's closest relatives came, and they all had time to bid farewell, she stood with Ashlyn and held her tight, and they endured together the horror of standing doing nothing as someone they loved found their end.

**. . .**

A week later, Ashlyn and Ali had been back in Orlando for a few days, but both of them were pretty down. They informed their club that Ashlyn's mother had unexpectedly and suddenly passed away, without revealing any extra information, and both she and Ali were granted compassionate leaves, so they could stay home and process. Ali's interest to be home was however to take care of Ashlyn, more than anything, because she had never seen the woman so sullen.

It had started immediately after Tammye's death. Ashlyn had seemed to be dead alive, and entered what the doctors called acute stress disorder. They explained to Ali that her wife was traumatized, was struggling with her own mental health, and now was experiencing the whole load of acute stress disorder. Dissociation, being dazed, unawareness of her surroundings, she just seemed to be stuck in her head, she didn't really cry anymore, she was numb, detached, and so they saw a psychiatrist back in the Space Coast, and got her a few sessions and medication. With that, she seemed to respond somewhat okay, and started to be a bit more aware, responsive, in touch with her surroundings and alive, so after the funeral, Ali wasted little time before she brought her home to see her own long-time therapist, who worked with the medical professionals to complement her therapy with medications, casually the same ones as the psychiatrist in the Space Coast had deemed necessary to keep Ashlyn calm, sleeping at night, less dissociative, and better.

Problem then came that it turns out, what Ashlyn had turned to PTSD quite fast. Ali knew the second they entered their bedroom, after arriving home the first day. They had a ceiling fan over their bed, as did most bedrooms in Florida, where the temperatures could be asphyxiating, with the high humidity in the summer. And so when Ashlyn looked at it, she lost it. She began hyperventilating, shaking... thankfully Ali had spent years studying mental health to help her then girlfriend and also understand her own brother's addiction journey, and quickly recognized the symptoms and took her straight to see her therapist once more, and come up with a solution. Did she have to take out the fan? Or what?

Luckily for Ali's Northerner's inability to stand the heat, the solution turned out to be easy, as their ceiling fan was one of those modern ones whose wings can come into the fan and back out when needed, so since it was still only January and it wasn't so hot, Ali pressed the control's button to get the wings back inside, and then it just looked like a normal ceiling light, so Ashlyn didn't react to it, even if she knew what it was. But then the problem were the sheets. For some reason, having had to undo with Ali the knot Tammye had done with a sheet around her own neck meant that now, every time Ashlyn touched something with a similar texture, she'd go into a frenzy. She was working on it with her therapist, that had seen the emergency of the situation and scheduled her daily, and her therapist also taught Ali some ways to help Ashlyn, like how to guide her into calming breathing exercises, or end a moment of hysteria.

Still, Ali removed the sheets from their bed, and substituted them with a large cotton blanket, which had a different texture, and a thin duvet of a similar texture, as it was cold at night.

“It's okay,” Ali still reassured her wife, rubbing her back as they lied in bed at night, and Ali, who was spooning Ashlyn, felt her trembling. It was possible her mind was, as it happened so frequently, back thinking of what she had lived, or maybe the pillow's texture was too similar to those sheets. Ali had really tried to substitute all their bed stuff, but there wasn't such a variety when it came to beds. “It's over. You're okay.” She used her most tender voice, and slowly, Ashlyn moved to roll closer to her, burying her face against her chest. It was strange to have Ashlyn be the one who wanted to be held and protected, when usually she preferred the role of the spooner, but she was grieving, and Ali didn't mind. She held her close and soothed her the best she could.

“I'm terrified, Alex. I'm absolutely terrified,” Ashlyn confessed, her voice so low and weak Ali thought, for a brief moment, that she was imagining it.

“Why? Nothing bad is going to happen.”

“Isn't it?” Ashlyn abruptly sat up, distressed, and Ali sat up as well and turned on the lamp on her bedside table. Turning back to face her wife, she found Ashlyn looking panicked, hugging herself and staring at her in fear.

“What's wrong honey?”

“I am next. I'll do what she's done.”

Ali looked confused.

“What? Killing yourself? No, we're taking care of you.”

“But Alex, I'm so much like her. I'm an emotional sponge, I've got the same crappy mental health, I've fought the same battle with depression and anxiety pretty much my whole life. I'm overly sensitive, overly empathetic... look at her. She fought so hard, she had help, she did the right things... and still, the monsters in her head won. They made her hang herself. And I've got them right here, Alex!” Ashlyn knocked on her own head with her fist, eyes full of tears. “I can't even trust my own thoughts! I feel them monsters here, twisting everything to make it more painful, reminding me time and time again of Mum's death, trying to bring me down so hard so they can take me too... It doesn't matter how hard I fight, that's how it ends! They'll get me!”

Ali had never thought of the word 'crazy' as a serious definition of her wife, but in that moment she feared her wife had totally lost it and become schizophrenic or something. However, she took a moment to understand where it came from, and understand Ashlyn was seriously afraid, afraid to end up like her mother, afraid to be fighting for decades in vain, afraid of losing the battle and dying... she hadn't been mourning her mother's death. She had been becoming aware of the fact that she was so much like Tammye personality wise, that she might end up the same. She hadn't even had time to miss Tammye yet, only to panic about her own prospectives of future.

“Ashlyn, my love, listen to me okay? Really listen,” Ali took her hands and looked straight into her hazel eyes. “I am here. I will not let anything happen to you, not now, not ever, do you understand? There is no way in hell I'm letting you hurt yourself, or anyone hurt you. No way. And you trust me, right?”

“With my life.”

“Then trust me when I say I will keep you safe. Your Mum unfortunately lived alone, but we are a team here and I've got your back. I will take care of you, I swear.”

“You won't let me die?”

“I won't.”

“No matter how hard the monsters in my head try to kill me?”

“No matter what. Ash, if you can't trust yourself, trust me. I've got this. I'll protect you, you're safe with me. You can close your eyes and sleep and I promise nothing bad will happen. I'll guard you.”

Ashlyn nodded, still trembling, and hugged her tightly as both snuggled back in bed and Ali tucked the duvet around them.

“I put my life in your hands, Ali. I trust you.”

The brunette heard her whisper and nodded, squeezing her tight and closing her eyes. She'd be damned if she ever let anything happen to this woman who was her whole life.

  
  



	4. On the edge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A long while ago, I experienced the demons of depression in my own skin. I never hurt myself in the slightest, but I experienced the absolute agony and terror that feeling your brain act on its own and send you thoughts and feelings, that you don't trust are absolute truth or not, feels like. I crystal clear remember thinking 'wait a moment, my mind may say I'm worthless or useless, but that doesn't have to be true, which means, I can't even trust my own thoughts'.
> 
> That inspired me into writing this chapter. As a reminder to everyone that sometimes, we can't listen to our very own thoughts. Sometimes the best we can do is do whatever it takes to ignore them, like, for me focusing on a book, music or something in my computer was enough, and we just remember that our minds can talk bullshit too.

**Chapter 4: On the edge.**

“...I'm sorry, I can't tell you when any of us will be back at work just yet,” Ali was on the phone with the owner of the Orlando Pride, leaning back on the sofa with her calendar and agenda both on her lap, pen in hand, while her eyes fixed on Ashlyn, who had been staring at their lava lamp for so long she was surprised her eyes hadn't burned yet. “Ashlyn is still not doing well at all, she's having heavy mental health issues, and it makes me anxious just to think of leaving her to go to work, even if there's someone here to look after her. But I will call you the minute I can confirm any of us will be back, okay? I think maybe in four or eight weeks, maybe then. All right, thank you, have a nice day...” she hung up, and sighed, putting her phone down and checking her calendar again.

They were entering March now, and she had to cancel the two Ali Krieger Football Camps she had planned for that month. If she couldn't be there, when everyone went to meet her, then what was the point? She couldn't just stick the attendees with a bunch of coaches and not show up. But she could refund them all completely and offer a discount for the next AKFC camp they wished to attend. She sent an email, personally, to all the campers that were affected, informing them that due to health reasons, she was unable to go on with the camps until likely, the summer. By then Ali would be heavily pregnant, as the baby was due early in October, but surely she could show up and play around a little.

“I'm sorry,” Ashlyn murmured, turning to her. She seemed so small it broke Ali's heart. “You shouldn't have to put your compromises on hold for me. You had plans... and the Pride, they've lost the two of us at once.”

“Ashlyn, I don't _have_ to put anything on hold. I do it happily because I want to, because my love for you is greater than my love for these engagements,” Ali walked over to her wife, who sat on a corner of the sofa after having just returned from therapy, and smiled warmly, sitting in front of her and cupping her face with her hands. “Besides, the Pride would lose me anyway, I just can't tell them I'm pregnant until it's out of the woods next week. And you will be back soon, you will see.”

Due to the confrontational nature of soccer, it was dangerous for any pregnant player to play, even when their stage of pregnancy wasn't so advanced that it would make it physically challenging to play. Because of this, the moment one knew they were pregnant was the exact moment when they should stop playing altogether. Ali's pregnancy had coincided with the entire season, so she knew she wasn't going to play a single game and that she would probably have to retire from soccer altogether without a retirement game. It was sad, but she really hadn't thought she'd get pregnant on the first attempt. She thought it wouldn't happen until the summer, when she had had months to prepare to retire. Luckily for her, she always played each game like the last, so there wasn't a feeling of really needing more minutes.

As for Ashlyn, her professional future was unpredictable. Right now, and partially to keep her busy, she still went with Ali and a personal coach for each of them, every day, to the gym to stay in shape. Ashlyn needed the thrill of sports for her mental health, and so far it seemed like a good distraction. In the mornings and evenings, Ali would take her for a run at the dog park, while playing with the dogs, now that she still wasn't so pregnant that it'd be terribly uncomfortable. Ashlyn hated running, but they'd listen to some music of the kind that automatically cheers you up, have some fun with the dogs, and forget about depression for a while, and it was good to be out of the house for some time. Ashlyn wasn't really mentally fit to practise at the goal -she would likely get a ball to the face- but she did practise with a personal coach, training reflexes with some foam rubber balls of different sizes. Ali would sometimes train with her own personal coach just a few metres away, in case she gave birth and could still return a couple games, and also to be in general good shape and good for her camps, and other times she'd sit on the bench and watch Ashlyn, which was always nice entertainment.

“How are you so sure?” asked the goalkeeper, who often doubted she'd make it back. She could feel it when she trained, how her head wasn't in the right place, how she kept making silly mistakes, even if her coach, who was an angel and knew perfectly well what was happening, never ceased to encourage her and support her, but she wasn't fit for an actual game.

“Storms never last forever,” Ali replied simply. “Besides, you are the best goalkeeper in the world. You've made comebacks from physical injuries that for most people would've been retirement injuries. You're a fighter baby, that's just your kind of magic.”

Ashlyn snorted a laugh, nodding slowly.

“I hope you're right. I hate feeling like this,” Ashlyn sighed deeply. “We should be over the moon with the baby. I should be all over you spoiling you rotten, giving you back rubs and preparing bubble baths for you, and we should be raiding the store buying all the cute baby clothes and mini shoes, and instead...” she shook her head.

“Hey, we've got about forty weeks. There'll be plenty of time for all of that, all right?” Ali kissed her gently. “This is just one bad season, but after this you get to spoil me and our child rotten for all the many decades we have left. How's that?”

“But I have to take care of my family now, Ali. You're pregnant, you're making a new person... you shouldn't have to babysit me too.”

“Maybe, but you know what? You didn't choose this. I'm sure you would rather be preparing for the NWSL fully, jumping dolphin like in front of the goalposts and buying our child their first goalkeeper gloves, but baby, lamenting something we cannot have for now won't fix anything. It's better to be reassured we will get that, we just have to wait a while. You're ill, and we'll ride this wave as a team and then it'll all be okay, and we'll have a baby to spoil.”

Ashlyn pursed her lips in thought.

“Do you think Thom Browne would make us a custom baby suit?” she asked suddenly, and the unexpected question made Ali laugh hard.

“That's my Ashlyn,” Ali murmured as her laughter died a moment later and Ashlyn smiled at her, reaching to hold her hand.

“Just a bad season, right?”

“Absolutely, trust me,” said Ali, kissing her cheek. “We could have a bubble bath though...”

“Read my mind!”

Half an hour later, Ali was in glory. She was leaning back against Ashlyn's chest, their legs spread in front of them under the bubbles, the hot water making their skins redden as Ashlyn's lips softly pecked her neck and shoulder and her hands cupped her belly, whose only signs of pregnancy so far were the fact that the lines of her abs had vanished in her lower belly, and it felt like her belly filled Ashlyn's hands a little.

“I can't wait until you're all round and big and we can feel the baby kicking...” Ashlyn murmured against her neck, chasing with her lips the little drops of water. Ali's hair was up in a high bun, and that meant Ashlyn had free access.

“Me neither...” Ali smiled small, closing her eyes. “And I'll have proper boobs for once.” She joked, making Ashlyn chuckle.

“I love your tiny boobs. They're so round and firm, like perfect coconut halves,” Ashlyn eyed them, not really feeling aroused due to her mental health combined with the medication she was in, but just admiring them. “But yeah, no change is going to be bad.”

“Except the varicose veins and the stretch marks,” Ali frowned slightly at the thought, but Ashlyn shook her head, trailing kisses to her cheek.

“Each one of them a reminder of the incredible things women can do,” Ashlyn murmured. “The miracle of life. I'll be kissing each and every one of them.”

Ali turned to her slightly, finding her lips to kiss, touched.

“You're the sweetest.”

A small smile crossed Ashlyn's face and she held her a little tighter.

“It's weird, though... to be a mother without one...”

“You do have a mother. She's just in heaven.”

“Do you really believe in those things?”

“I think,” Ali sighed. “We should believe whatever helps us keep going. There's no harm in it, if in any case, in the end we'll all be in the same place, rejoined. And I believe that wherever your Mum is, she's in no pain, no anxiety, no stress... she's at peace, for once. And after all she's been through, I think that'd be a good definition of heaven for her.”

The goalkeeper meditated it, eventually nodding in agreement. It still made her terribly sad to think of her mother, and it would possibly forever, but Ali's words surely helped.

“We could tell the baby that. You know, say her Grandma's in heaven.”

“Yeah,” Ali gently squeezed her hand over her belly. “Don't you worry babe, you know all you have to know about motherhood for now, and the rest experience will teach us both. Your mother was loving, caring, giving, generous... and so are you. You learned so much from her, and our children will from you too.”

“That's very sweet of you to say,” Ashlyn said gratefully. “There's something I want you to know though.”

“What is it?”

“I recently... I had our lawyer help me write down my testament.”

The sudden news made Ali abruptly turn around, looking shocked at her.

“You did what? Why?” Ali tried for her tone to sound neutral, and instead she couldn't help it coming out accusatory. It was just that she worried Ashlyn had done it in preparation to kill herself, and the goalkeeper's guilty expression wasn't helping ease her concerns.

“We're having a child and I'm mentally ill. I only want to make sure that, if, despite how much I'm trying to get better and how much help am I getting, I die, my affairs will all be in order, and that you and our child won't have to fight anyone to keep my stuff, or to have survivor's benefits. I didn't tell you I was going to do it so you wouldn't worry I was thinking of suicide, and I promise you I am not, it's just... after seeing Mum die, I really need to feel like if anything ever happens to me, because of this or anything else, you and our offspring will be, at least economically, okay.”

Ali let out a deep breath of relief at the confirmation that it wasn't crossing Ashlyn's mind to kill herself. She was just being cautious, that fitted her.

“You're just anxious about anything happening to you and leaving your child without a penny, uh?”

“Exactly.”

“Okay,” Ali resumed her position, putting Ashlyn's arms around herself and leaning back. “Thank you for doing that for us.”

Ashlyn pressed her lips against her temple and patted her shoulders gently.

“Okay, let me get out. This water is getting too cold for my Southern body, I need to get into my cosiest pyjamas.”

“I'll let you out only if you come and get me with a towel.”

“You know I never miss a chance to spoil the crap out of you,” Ashlyn smiled small, kissing her before Ali moved forward to let her out.

Ali shamelessly entertained herself watching Ashlyn quickly dry herself with a towel, her ass wiggling so close to Ali the brunette had to resist the urge to pinch it, and as soon as the younger woman was out of her sight, she began to mentally count. If she didn't hear Ashlyn coming back in two minutes, she was getting out. But not even a minute had passed when Ashlyn returned in her pyjamas, with Ali's bathrobe, holding it open for her wife.

“There you go,” Ashlyn closed the robe around her from behind, hugging her close and kissing her cheek. “You smell fantastic babe.”

“I'm just trying to get on your level.”

It was true. Ali had no idea how Ashlyn did it, but even when she was most miserable and without the strength to brush her hair, Ashlyn managed to smell wonderfully. It was like her skin could only produce nice smells, showered or not.

They had only just made it to their bedroom and gotten comfortable under the covers, ready for nap time, when Ashlyn started to feel something going off in her head. Storm, their white-grey-black French bulldog, was barking at a fly, and Ashlyn was struck with the sudden memory of the dogs barking at Tammye's door. They knew she was dying, they weren't silly. Maybe Ali was right. Maybe death was heaven for Tammye. No more pain, no more struggle... maybe it'd be just as heavenly for her.

Before she could really understand why, she had sat up on the bed, slipping her feet inside her slippers again, eyes fixed on the adjoined bathroom's door.

“Baby? Where are you going?” Ali was sleepy, peeking at her. She might not be very pregnant, but the hormones were already all over the place, making her reasonably tired. Besides, she had been up early.

“I have to pee,” Ashlyn murmured.

“ _Do it,_ ” a sudden voice appeared by Ashlyn's ear, a genderless, raspy whisper, but Ashlyn wasn't afraid. “ _Your affairs are in order. You deserve a break. You will be back with Mum. The pain will stop. Ali will understand._ ”

Ashlyn's body wasn't her own. Her feet walked her to the bathroom door and a shaky hand reached out to grab the handle, opening it. Ali was saying something, but her voice seemed distant, unreachable.

“ _She only wants you alive to make her company, how selfish!_ ” the voice said, feeling loud in Ashlyn's head. “ _Lock the door. Lock it! Otherwise, she will try to stop you from being happy. You deserve to be happy. To rest, to stop the pain..._ ”

The goalkeeper was startled by the sound of the click that indicated the door was locked, and stared at her trembling fingers as if they weren't hers, confused. Ali was beating the door with her palm, shouting at her to open up, and she turned to do it, but her head suddenly hurt so hard her hand flew to her head and not to the handle.

“ _Silly! You want to kill the demons inside your head... you can't kill me without killing yourself._ ”

“Leave me alone, I don't want this...” Ashlyn murmured, sobbing.

“ _You know you want me dead. You know you want me gone. I took your mother... what can you do?_ ”

Suddenly Ashlyn was holding a razor. She frowned, not remembering having taken it from the plastic back in the cabinet. Ali was now hitting the door so hard it made her head hurt worse, the brunette was desperate to reach her. Ashlyn's eyes fixed on the razor and saw it tremble. Was her hand trembling too?

“I want to live...” she sobbed out.

“ _Do you? What for? There's only going to be more pain. Look how peaceful Mum looked, she was just sleeping, happy... don't you want that?_ ”

“I want to live!” Ashlyn cried out. “Ali! Ali!” she began to snap out of her trance, turning to the door.

“Ash! Ash! Open up! Open the door for me! Ashlyn!”

“ _If you go back you will make her miserable. She deserves better than a wife who only makes her cry. You'd do her a favour dying. You just don't have the guts. Coward. Coward!_ ”

Ashlyn threw the razor hard against the wall and opened the tap, throwing water on her face. Everything was too loud. Ali's shouting, the voice in her head... she could hear now so many voices in her head that she couldn't distinguish one from another, what they said, nothing, just so much noise. Somehow, Ashlyn wound up on her hands and knees, sobbing uncontrollably, and then saw a paper slide under the door. She took it with trembling hands and saw her own vows, that she had written and left somewhere safe in her room after the wedding.

' _...I promise to grow with you, knowing that together we will build a life far better than either of us could imagine alone..._ '

The voices in her head started to clear out, and she could hear Ali better.

“I LOVE YOU! PLEASE DON'T HURT YOURSELF! I LOVE YOU!” she frantically screamed.

' _...Today I get to call you my wife, and I will cherish and honour that until my very last breath..._ '

She had to stay. She promised. She vowed to grow with Ali, not to leave her alone with a baby on the way.

The voices cleared completely and she could only hear her own crying, and Ali's, on the other side of the door. Ashlyn raised a trembling hand and unlocked the door.

  
  



	5. Rock bottom

**Chapter 5: Rock bottom.**

Orlando had plenty of nice hospitals, and Orlando Health, which sponsored the Orlando Pride, guaranteed Ashlyn and Ali, and any other teammate of their club, access to some of the best facilities and treatments in Florida, right there, in their city. Because of this, Ashlyn was quickly admitted into the psychiatric facility in their preferred private hospital, all under the utmost discretion, as Ali didn't want anyone to know Ashlyn was in a psychiatric ward. It wasn't something embarrassing and she was sure Ashlyn would share the news like she shared everything once she felt better, but it was something for Ashlyn to share when the moment was right, not something for someone to out without consent and give room for mocking and messing with the goalkeeper.

Ali was heartbroken. Christopher and Mike came right away, and she couldn't stop crying as she watched, through Ashlyn's room's inside window, how her wife looked. After finally reaching her, Ali had seen the razor, the state her wife was in, and Ashlyn had finally confessed she needed more help, that there were voices in her head that wanted her dead. Worried about voices, like anyone would be in her position, Ali had convinced her to let herself be dragged to the hospital, but Ashlyn was terrified of hospitals and with the way psychiatric wards were represented in the media, she was even more terrified, so it was still a difficult journey for the both of them.

Now at last Ashlyn had been medicated so she would calm down, and Ali stared at her while she lied on a hospital bed in her pyjamas and one of the best psychotherapists in the country interviewed her. She looked lifeless, done. It was heartbreaking.

“You did everything you could do,” Christopher comforted her, arms wrapped around her from a side. “She had her therapist, the meds... sometimes it just doesn't work.”

“I know,” Ali took a deep breath to calm herself, seeing the psychotherapist stand up, and rubbed the tears off her eyes. “It just breaks my heart to know she's suffering so greatly.”

The psychotherapist opened the door and met them with a serious but generous expression. Dr Arizona Walters exuded calm and serenity, and as her blue eyes fixed on the heartbroken wife, they filled with sadness for her and she raised a pale, pinkish hand with long thin fingers to her shoulder, giving it an affectionate squeeze.

“Why don't we talk in my office, uh? You can have some water,” Dr Walters offered. Ali nodded, taking more deep breaths, and the three followed her while a nurse went in to check on Ashlyn.

The doctor's office wasn't far, just along the corridor in the same floor, and they were soon sitting on sofas, with glasses of water and a plate of biscuits the doctor offered them.

“Thank you,” said Ali appreciatively. “So what do you think?”

“Well...” her voice was warm and deep, soft, stroking their eardrums gently and making them feel it'd be okay automatically. “All the tests, including the CT scan, show there isn't any sort of tumour or anything wrong in her brain, I mean aside from the fact that she has depression, of course. But I'm afraid her depression has evolved into psychotic depression.”

“What's that?” inquired Mike worrying about his daughter, one of his heavy hands on Ali's knee next to his own.

“It's a depression that also presents some symptoms of psychosis. In her case, she's hearing voices that she says appeared suddenly today and were so loud in her head she could hardly hear anything else. Voices that encouraged her to commit suicide, or degraded her, made her feel worse. Thankfully it appears to be the only psychosis she's experimenting for now, but it's a very dangerous one, since last thing a depressive person needs is to be encouraged to die.”

“So what do we do?” Ali asked feeling her heart clench with worry.

“Well I don't think she's competent to make a decision for herself, not when she has voices in her head telling her what to or not to do,” Dr Walters proceeded, “and she agrees with me so therefore, the decision is yours, and so I advise you to look at this in the same manner you'd look at a person ill with cancer. What your wife has will kill her untreated, it's just as severe, and likewise, it can grow or shrink, some meds may work, others won't, some meds may have strong side effects, others less... in the end is our job to evaluate what works best and what's best for her individual case to determine how we can help her best and keep her alive, healthy, happy. The goal right now is to bring her from rock bottom to a neutral state, hopefully in less than a week, where she is able to go home, continue her life, follow a strict treatment and only go up from there. In order to do that, I'd advise she stays here until we get to that point, just a few days, and follows a program designed for her needs.”

“Of course, whatever you think best,” Ali nodded. “So what will that be about?”

“A daily routine. We have group therapy that might help her, where patients with a similar diagnose just gather together with me and we discuss any issues, doubts, concerns they may have, share experiences, practise breathing and stress management exercises, anxiety management techniques... usually it helps them feel less alone, and realize there are other people suffering the same stuff, people who may have good advise to offer.”

“Sounds good,” Mike nodded. “Is that all she needs? And she'll recover?”

“I wish it was that simple,” Dr Walter smiled sadly. “It'll have to go along with daily individual therapy, I would certainly recommend cognitive-behavioural therapy to learn skills and find the things that trigger her breakdowns, psychodynamic therapy, as for what you were telling me when she came in, her past is a big origin of her current depression and it'd help figure out exactly what wounds haven't healed and take care of them, and supportive counselling, where we can address whatever she wants to address. And in her case, I'd strongly advice family therapy as well.”

“So we go to therapy too,” Christopher said, unsure.

“With her,” Dr Walters nodded. “And with me. The idea is that she got into this mess because her family was a mess when she was growing up. Yes, she most likely has genetic factors that make her prone to depression, but she had uh...” she turned around to grab a folder from her desk and read the full report. “An alcoholic mother, a father with anger issues, an addict brother, two addict cousins one of which almost wound-up dead, a beloved family member, I believe her grandmother, right? Who had cancer twice when Ashlyn was young?”

“Yes,” Mike nodded. “My Mum. They're as thick as thieves, my Mum has just managed to have that sort of relationship with her four grandchildren, one of which is the one who almost ended up dead, but it's special with Ashlyn, I believe. For a while when Ashlyn was a young teenager and her mother and I were divorcing and facing severe economical and mental issues, she went to live with my parents and they built a really strong bond. Unfortunately, my parents are now both old and in wheelchairs, won't be living much longer.”

“And most kids don't get to still have grandparents by their late thirties, so it will most certainly be a big blow whenever they unfortunately pass away, a blow that, if it where to happen now, Ashlyn would not withstand with her current state of mind,” Dr Walters explained softly. “I think she needs her family to support her. Most of my patients don't have such strong family bonds, but I spoke with her regular therapist, she passed me the history, I know she's really close with her people, that she's someone who helps out whoever needs it any time, it'd be great if at least you three could show up for some family therapy, just talk, you may find some of your own issues solved too.”

“Count me in,” Mike nodded.

“Yes, whatever my baby sister needs, any time,” Christopher agreed.

“Hell yeah,” Ali added.

“Great! It's also a great opportunity for you to dig into however this situation affects you so I can support you too and you can support each other, gather a better understatement of the situation and find healthy ways to deal with it. I particularly worry about you Ali, because I know you two live alone for now, you're the one who's absorbed the bigger blow of this whole thing, you were there when she found her mother as well, I don't want for her to end up unintentionally sinking your mental health too. It's not rare for partners to wind-up depressed as well.”

Ali nodded, blowing her nose on a tissue.

“I just need her to be okay. We haven't said anything else, because it's still to early and I could still lose it but... I'm pregnant,” she confessed, and it was almost comical the way their faces went from serious to elated to worried. “We found out shortly before Tammye died. We were going to celebrate in Satellite, pregnant at the first IVF attempt, it was a big deal... and Ashlyn was happier and more excited and elated than I've ever seen her in my whole life, and I was there when she was winning World Cups and Olympic gold medals... this was something else. And then yesterday she was so sad that her mental health was taking away the joy, I told her it wasn't her fault, but you know, still... and... I think she struggles with the idea that she's going to be a mother without having one alive, and she's going to have the child she told Tammye she would soon have when we started the IVF process months back, and that Tammye was very excited about... I even think she might fear our baby gets bad mental health too, because we used her eggs.”

“Thank you for telling me, it's definitively important information to have in count, and also for your own mental health as well,” Dr Walters said appreciatively. “So when is this baby due?”

“October 7th,” Ali replied. “That's the due date. And the plan was for us both to retire from soccer altogether this year. We left the National Team last year, but we thought it'd be better to retire gradually... and we never thought I'd be pregnant in the first attempt and miss my whole last season so, I'll actually be retiring already, I can't play pregnant, you see? It's not safe. But Ashlyn needs to return, she needs to have a proper closure with soccer, it's been her whole life, she was five when she first put goalkeeper gloves on, it's been over thirty years. I promised her we'd manage to get her back so she can at least have the end of the season.”

“Right, well yeah, I don't imagine missing something like that would sit well with her mental health and sports are actually very good for someone's health.”

“Soccer saved her,” Mike intervened. “If she hadn't had that, she would've killed herself with addiction in her teens, or in a fight, she was very violent, couldn't manage her emotions, a bit like me at the time. So she definitely, definitely needs a chance to say goodbye to the sport she owes her life to, before the child is born.”

“Well the goal is for her to not be here more than a week, and then get her into a state where she can safely continue treatment as an outpatient while continuing with her normal life in a good state of mind, able to work and just live as normal, and without depending on your care,” Dr Walters explained. “It does occur to me we could introduce exercise into her therapies here, it could help a lot and I'm sure we could find some smart way to do it. A person like her may, after all, feel like in prison if she cannot leave her room, if she's used to being outdoors so much... so I'll make sure to get her some outdoors exercise every day for a bit, we have some nice facilities, closed garden where she can chill... and also, since she had issues with violence, we have some self-defence groups that she could join to discharge a bit.”

“Amazing, thank you,” Ali felt a wave of relief wash over knowing she was going to be in good hands. “And what about medication? You said it wasn't working, so will you be stopping that?”

“I'll change the doses a bit, the types... we'll keep her on Vortioxetine, an SSRI recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence for treating severe depression in adults, which will raise her levels of serotonin, and while in hospital I was thinking of giving her Esketamine. I wouldn't ever give it to her outside the hospital because is a delicate last-resource drug for patients with severe depression with whom nothing else works anymore, like Ashlyn's case, because it can cause hallucinations and she already has them. But it has a really instant effect, it's a nasal spray, and we'll keep her strongly monitored after each dose so the moment it's not working properly it's out.”

“Okay,” Ali nodded, somewhat unsure. “If you're absolutely sure and the nurses will keep an eye on her...”

“I would suggest she stays in Vortioxetine for the next few years, but we'll monitor it, keep regular check-ups. But her therapist gave it to her and it seems to be doing something, as you said she got better before she started with the hallucinations.”

“Yes, maybe she needed a higher dose, I don't know...”

“We'll try that. I don't really want to give her any more medications, I don't want her feeling too sick with the side effects or too full of drugs. We also have a mindfulness class daily in the evenings for the patients, which could work for her, and lastly, I was meditating, if you give consent, giving her repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, also called rTMS, which has proven effective with depression and anxiety disorders.”

Ali, Mike and Christopher exchanged confused looks, before Christopher asked.

“What's that... RTMS thing?”

“It's a non-invasive treatment we can do here in hospital now as a patient, later as an outpatient, that sends magnetic pulses to the parts of the brain that control mood and emotions. Basically, an electromagnetic coil will be held against her scalp, which creates electric currents in certain parts of the brain. Treatment involves daily sessions of about 30 minutes, lasting for 2–6 weeks, five days a week, it's done without anaesthesia, it's one of the safest treatments, it barely has side effects, most patients feel better right away, it only produces some headaches in some people, one in every several tens of thousands of patients may get mild seizures, and all the side effects pass within a few hours. I've done it before on patients like Ashlyn, with severe depression, and so far the results have always been good.”

“Okay then, but I'd rather Ashlyn approves as well. I don't want her to have to do something she's not comfortable with,” Ali said, feeling hopeful for the first time in weeks. It seemed like there were plenty of options left for Ashlyn to feel better.

“Of course, you can go talk to her now for as long as you need. You can bring her a bag with pyjamas, toiletries, slippers, books, whatever entertainment she might have... nothing that's sharp, cutting... not even tweezers, okay? Nothing she could somehow cause herself pain with, or someone else, even when it seems innocent at first there are many objects that can actually cause harm. And nothing toxic like shaving foam, cologne, or anything she could ingest. In fact, as for shower gels and shampoos, keep them in the little 50ml plastic bottles so that if she ingest any, it can never be too much,” Dr Walters indicated, speaking slowly so Ali could take notes in her smart phone. “If you bring her music, keep it upbeat but avoid excess of upbeat like rock & roll, we want to keep her calm, just not remotely depressing or too profound lyrics that make her think too much. And avoid electronics. The internet can be a dangerous place for people in her mental state.”

“What about her phone? So she can call me?”

“Yes, but make sure the cable for the charger is short, and keep the internet turned off, at least until she feels better. Of course she could reactivate it herself, but just tell her, you know, as a health recommendation, not a strong prohibition. Visiting hours are from 10 AM to 6 PM, exceptions can be made if she's really down or something we may suggest you stay overnight with her, to keep her company, since she's so terrified of hospitals.”

“Right, good,” Ali nodded. “Can I bring her...? Well, there's this ping pong thing she really likes, whenever she can't go train outside she likes to play with it indoors, against the walls. The ball is soft plastic, doesn't really hurt if you get hit with it.”

“Okay,” the doctor agreed. “Anything else you need, just ask.”

“I was also thinking... Ashlyn doesn't really read much, but she's very, very, very into sharks. She loves shark films, has a collection of stuffed shark animals... could I bring her those? I can download some films in her tablet, but I know you said no electronics...”

The doctor couldn't help smiling, finding the idea of a grown-up adult being excited about stuffed animals adorable.

“Sure thing,” she nodded. “Comfort stuff are good ideas.”

“Awesome,” Ali grinned and turned to her brother-in-law and father-in-law. “Would you guys go stay with her while I pack a bag for her?”

“Yes, don't worry, take the time you need,” Christopher replied.

So after the meeting, the men returned to Ashlyn and Ali returned home, grabbed a sports holdall and a backpack, and started filling them up. She added Ashlyn's favourite comfort blanket, and her shark onesie. If anyone in the hospital even tried to mock her, Ali would bite their heads off properly. Lastly, she got Ashlyn's favourite biscuits and green smoothies, and three of her favourite stuffed sharks, that the fans had given her over the years. She was about to add a framed photograph from their wedding when she realized the glass may not be a good idea, so instead she made sure to take a few selfies with Ashlyn's phone to surprise her.

She'd do anything for her wife.

  
  



	6. Open your eyes and see

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Open your eyes now  
> Open your eyes now  
> I'll try to be  
> Almost everything  
> You need me to be

**Chapter 6: Open your eyes and see.**

When Ali appeared at the doorstep to Ashlyn's room, the Harris men automatically made excuses to leave, hugged and kissed Ashlyn goodbye -for the time being- and left. Ali stood at the door with the bags and beamed a smile at Ashlyn. The room was small and cosy, but it was really nice. It had windows that couldn't be opened and whose glass, Ali suspected, was particularly hard to break, so there was a good amount of natural light coming in and views of the park below, it had a double sofa with an oval, wooden coffee table, a nice-looking hospital bed with very few machines, just to monitor Ashlyn's heart and a rack to hold any IV bags she may need, an en-suite closet, a small adjacent bathroom, and three armchairs. It was clearly the room of an expensive private hospital, but Ali couldn't care less about the expenses.

Ashlyn sat on the sofa with her housecoat over her hospital gown, looking sad, but smiled up at her, small.

“I wasn't sure you'd come,” Ashlyn admitted.

“Only because you're sick in the head,” Ali replied teasingly, walking to her and sitting by her side before pulling her in for an intense kiss. “I'm never going to leave you. Bat-shit crazy or not, I am never going to leave you. Got it?”

A smile crept its way into Ashlyn's face and she nodded.

“Got it.”

“I was bringing you goodies,” Ali opened the holdall and started pulling things out. “You're only going to be here a week, but I figured you could never have enough of home in a hospital. So here are your favourite blankie and shark pyjamas, one short sleeves one long, so you change if you're too hot or cold, your slippers, underwear... they're giving you sheets and towels, so no need to do that. Here's your phone, charger, tablet, charger. I put into your phone a bunch of our favourite playlists, and I made sure to get all the shark movies you adore into your tablet.” She said leaving those on the coffee table. Ashlyn snorted a laugh.

“You're wonderful baby.”

“I try,” Ali kissed her cheek. “Your hairbrush, some elastic bands... they don't allow perfume or tweezers but I'll pluck your eyebrows when you need it,” she checked her wife's face for a moment. “I think you're fine though,” to Ali, Ashlyn was sexy no matter what, but she knew everyone liked to look to their taste to feel good. And Ashlyn was very picky about her own body hair. “Headphones, don't use the Internet okay? It's everything downloaded.”

“I can't use the Internet?”

“Well, no one will kill you if you do, but the doctor said it wasn't advised while you were so shitty, since it can be more depressive,” Ali explained. “I brought you the self-help book I got you for Christmas and you were halfway through, and I'll make sure to buy you a couple magazines a day when I visit you. Oh, and here are your biscuits and your smoothies, tell me when you run out.”

“Thank you love. This is... incredible. Thank you.” Ashlyn said severely touched. She always knew how thoughtful and generous her wife was, but at times it still impressed her.

Ali smiled and dug her hand into the holdall one final time, pulling out a small box.

“Your favourite letters from fans, if you ever need to remember no one else—,”

“—can play my part.” They smiled warmly at each other, and Ali nodded, grabbing the backpack.

“Here's your ping-pong, your sharks...”

“Deandre! You brought my faves! I didn't even think you'd remember my faves.”

“Of course I remember,” Ali playfully threw her a shark to the face. “And here are the shower products, your water bottle, you can ask the nurses to refill it any time, I asked... and here's a new drawing notebook with plenty of markers. They don't allow anything sharp like pencils, but markers have soft tip and you don't need a sharpener.”

“You really thought of everything, how smart.”

“I hope that doesn't imply you ever doubted me.”

“Never,” Ashlyn grinned, holding her close. “How long do I get to keep you though?”

“I'm going to spend the whole visiting hours here, so several hours, and a nurse told me I could stay the night so until you're more recovered, you don't actually have to be all alone. But I can't come with you to your different therapies save from family therapy so... will wait here while you do those.”

“What therapies?”

Ali realized she hadn't told her anything about her treatment, so they spent the next hour discussing it, and Ashlyn agreed with everything that was recommended for her, so there were no issues.

“I'm so sorry I'm putting you all through this crap,” Ashlyn said at last. “I know it's not my fault,” she added quickly before Ali could say it, “but I'm still sorry. I imagined your pregnancy differently... And I want you to know that I had no say to be this ill, but I choose to stay. I choose to love you. I choose to take care of my family, to be anyone's rock whenever they need one, to live... and I will be back home, no matter how hard it is. You saved me, and when you reminded me my vows, it... the voices left. And I realized it all comes down to that. I've spent nearly eleven years filling my mouth with promises to you, I gave you my word, that we'd grow old together, that we'd raise children together, that we'd be happier together than we could've ever imagined... and I'm not going to rest until I fulfil each and every promise and then more.”

Ali pressed her lips into a smile, getting emotional and feeling her eyes fill with tears. Her words meant more than she could express.

“I believe you.”

“Good,” Ashlyn gulped and nodded, taking her hands. “And yet if despite everything, if I still don't make it... I want you to know it's not your fault. You've loved me, always, even when I couldn't love myself, with you I've known true happiness, true love, true understanding, freedom... you've allowed me to be hundred percent me, and you've loved every bit. I owe you everything. And you have done everything and then much more to help me, to keep me alive and happy another hour, you've gone beyond all imaginable just to help me, until all the options have been used. You promised you wouldn't let me die... and no matter what happens now, consider that fulfilled. You dragged me here, and I know with that, you did the ultimate sacrifice. To admit you wouldn't be enough to help me and find someone who could. I'm forever grateful, Ali. You're the best I'll ever have, and whatever happens... you take care of this one, okay?” she patted her belly gently. “You make sure they get help early at the slightest sign of being too much like Mum and I, and you love them, cause that's all they'll need. With you, they'll be fine.”

“Don't worry, you'll be there to love them with me,” Ali squeezed her hands.

“I'm sure,” Ashlyn pecked her lips slowly. “You're my Wonder Woman. I'd be nothing without you. I wouldn't be alive. I love you, you know? Like, for real.”

“In the way that makes your chest feel physical pain when you see me cry,” Ali said knowingly, and Ashlyn chuckled tearfully.

“Well, luckily not this time; I know you cry because I'm so bloody hilarious.”

The dark joke caused the desired effect and Ali couldn't contain a chortle, making Ashlyn grin in satisfaction.

“You're so silly. And all mine...”

“You married it, no returns accepted baby.”

“As if I'd ever want to return you,” Ali put her arms around her neck and hugged her tight. “My best gift, my most wonderful, wonderful, companion... what could I ever possibly do without you?”

“Masturbate?” Ali slapped her chest slightly, but they both laughed, letting a bit of glee into their lives. “Woah these drugs are really good! I'm a comedian!”

“Making dirty jokes in front of our baby, you should be ashamed of yourself young lady,” Ali joked, only making her laugh harder. She lived to see her laugh. But as soon as the laughter died, she took Ashlyn's wedding band and put it on Ashlyn's eye level. “Read it.” She said seriously. Ashlyn smiled small, already knowing the engraving inside the ring, but reading it regardless.

“Alexandra, infinity symbol, Dec. 28th 2019, infinity symbol.”

“Exactly,” Ali put it back in place. “I am forever. I'm not going anywhere. Anything you need, just call me, no matter the hour.”

“Okay,” Ashlyn nodded. “You call me too, okay?”

“Sure. God I love you so hard,” Ali couldn't help but wrapping her arms around her again, hugging her as tight as physically possible, nuzzling into her neck. “It's just a week, all right? You're in the best possible hands, let them guide you and help you, take care of yourself... and you'll be home soon. And before your birthday comes, you'll have a brand new baby.”

“Just one week,” Ashlyn nodded, kissing her shoulder.

“This is rock bottom. We go up from here, all the way to the top, uh?”

“Damn right. I promise.”

“That's my girl.”

They stayed holding each other tight for a while, and after a long silence, Ashlyn's voice came in the form of a song. Their wedding first-dance song.

“When the night, has come... and the way is dark... and the moon is the only light you see... no I won't be afraid no I won't... be afraid, just as long... as you stand...”

“Stand by me,” they said at once. Ali grinned, kissing her lips and keeping her arms around her. “You're a fighter. You'll be okay. By the time the NWSL Championship comes, our baby will be cheering on Mama with their first jersey.”

Ashlyn grinned, kissing her again.

“Which does remind me...” she added as they separated. “Is your time to return to the Pride. We've barely seen our friends, no one knows what's happening, people are worried... unnecessarily so. Go. Tell them the happy news. Tell them what's going on, to the extent you feel comfortable with. Lean on your friends. And practice. Just because you can't play contact, it doesn't mean you can't practise until laughing makes you pee.”

“But I could use that time to visit...”

“No. There's enough time to visit me and besides, it looks like my agenda's going to be quite full, for what you said.”

“And what do we do when you come home?”

“I won't until I'm not suicidal. I won't until I can't be on the field with our friends and you at the very least training.”

“Fine,” Ali gave in. “Then you can help me when I pee laughing.”

Ashlyn chuckled.

“Deal.”

The brunette smiled back at her and kissed her.

“You insufferable dork...”

“All yours baby...”

That first night came after several of Ashlyn's programmed activities happened, and after a nice dinner in a large room with other patients of the psych ward and their relatives who were visiting. At last it was time to go to sleep, and Ali tucked Ashlyn in bed, kissing her meaningfully and giving her a million dollars smile.

“Well done today,” Ali said softly. “How are you feeling?”

Ashlyn smiled tiredly. It had been a very long, extenuating day, but now it felt better. Like she was coming out of a long flu.

“Like I want to live,” replied the younger woman, making the defender grin. “And I don't hear anything except from you. That's good, right?”

“That is very, very good,” Ali kissed her again. “I love you.”

“I love you. Sweet dreams baby.”

“You too,” Ali turned and retired to the sofa nearby, cuddling with a pillow under a blanket and smiling at her.

“Are you sure you're comfortable there?”

“I'm okay. It's better than camping.”

“All right. Thank you for staying tonight.”

“It's okay, you sleep tight. You need it.”

Ashlyn hummed in agreement, her eyelids already falling heavily over her eyes. She needed all her strength for the next day.

When morning came, Ashlyn was given her medication after breakfast, and Ali left, promising to see her later for family therapy. Then, Ashlyn was off to start her routine, with a timetable that had just been finished and was given to her, specific to her condition and needs. Depending on who you were, each patient had more or less activities, and therefore more or less time to actually be with their visitors, but Ashlyn had her hands pretty full. And she was nonetheless thankful, because it gave her less time to be in her room thinking too much. Besides, she still had plenty of days to go -it was actually seven full days plus the few hours of the day she arrived and the early morning of the day she left- and wanted to use them well.

  
  


  
  



	7. Empowered

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If there's anything in particular you'd like to read about, I always accept suggestions and petitions, by the way. I'm always writing, and ideas are always welcomed.

**Chapter 7: Empowered.**

Every day started at 8am, with forty-five minutes for breakfast in her room or in the common room, whatever she chose, and for her visitors were allowed during this time. Next, she always had a fifteen-minute break when she could go to her room, walk around, go to the common room, or whatever she wished, and visitors were allowed during this time, as well as during breakfast, but only a maximum of two.

Then from 9am to 11am she always had individual therapy and counselling, on her own, with Dr Walters. This was followed by forty minutes of rTMS. The session in itself was only half an hour, but the extra ten minutes were spent in walking around the hospital from one place to another, and also having a moment before and after sessions to stay sitting in the room and come back to her senses, ask questions, talk, or whatever she needed. After that, she was always granted fifty minutes of alone time in her room. This was different from breaks because she couldn't have guests or snacks and had to be in her room, reading, or whatever she wanted to do, as the nurses monitored her after the rTMS to ensure she was doing all right. But if all was well, she could go for lunch as normal, at 12:30, during one hour. Lunch was held in a big common room with dozens of round tables, and during this time she could be accompanied by one family member, so she would still talk and make connections with other patients, as everyone had their lunch at the same time. If she wasn't feeling too good, she had an option of having lunch in her bedroom instead. Then after lunch, Ashlyn had an hour of family therapy with her father, brother and wife in Dr Walters' office, which was okay. They were always offered water, tea and biscuits, and if the session was heavy it was still okay because afterwards Ashlyn had a one hour break to spend however she wanted and where her visitors could join her.

This private hospital was exclusive for mental health, and had incredible facilities to use, as all the clients were people with money -one more reason for Ashlyn to feel insanely blessed, otherwise she wouldn't have such awesome treatments- so they had gardens, a cafeteria, the bedroom, common rooms, and even an indoors patio with plants and a fountain, which was also nice. All of them were free to be in, in Ashlyn's case at least, as long as she was in her break. All of them had plenty of security guaranteed not just by security teams but also by other therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists and nurses that were always around just in case anyone had a psychotic break.

At half past three was time for half an hour of exercise outdoors in the garden, or indoors if the weather wasn't good, that she was told could be a bit of everything, soccer, basketball, ping-pong, machines, jogging, group play... anything. And it was always with a whole class. Once it finished, the same group went on to have an hour of some self-defence or martial arts. She had two days of Taekwondo that alternated with two days of boxing, to end with a day of Qigong, which she had never done, and a day of personal defence class. These things were designed to help you discharge violence, connect with yourself, control yourself, and feel empowered, capable of protecting yourself and taking care of yourself. Once that was done, the group remained together for half an hour of swimming pool, where she was told they also had a bubbles warm pool where the practitioner who guided the classes there might let them have some minutes to relax before leaving for a half-hour shower time. And if you were fast to shower, you could always have some alone time in your room before it came an hour of group therapy with Dr Walters.

At seven, they took Ashlyn to the soft room, a cushioned room with soothing music where they held a forty-minute class of relaxation, meditation and mindfulness with a certified professional. Basically breathing techniques and techniques to calm oneself down when they were losing their royal minds. Ashlyn loved this time, and it was the beginning of the late part of the day, when activities were designed to relax her, calm her down, and make sleep time come easy. So she left that room incredibly chill and then could have 1h and 20 minutes, until nine, as a break. And if she had any visitors, they could again come and they could be together. But if she fancied a nap, that was also okay, or anything else she needed. At that time, Dr Walters' assistant, Dr Parker, was always available if they had something they would like to talk about before bedtime as well. Dinner was an hour and a half at 9pm, and two family visitors were allowed, following the same rules of lunch of having it wherever Ashlyn preferred, and if she finished early, they could retreat to her room or to any other part of the hospital, and Ashlyn could even go to bed whenever she wanted. The only enforced rule of bed time was that at half past ten all the main lights in the corridors would be turned into very dimly lights, and the nurses would go room by room ensuring all patients were in bed, lights off. During the night, nurses would also frequently enter the rooms just to check on the patients' vitals and general state, but were very good at not waking them up, and also during the whole day, activities weren't strictly enforced -save for individual therapy & counselling, medication and rTMS, that could never be skipped unless the patient was unwell- so if at any time Ashlyn had to ask for a bathroom break, a snacks break or a general break, she could. In her ward, there was a specific nurse -one in the mornings and a different one in the afternoons, but the same two every day- that had about ten patients assigned to them with pretty much the same timetables, or at least activities that happened in very close facilities one to another, so they'd pick them up for each activity, and take them to each activity or treatment, and were there if Ashlyn needed anything at any given moment too.

The first day though, ended Ashlyn. When her final break came at a quarter to eight in the afternoon, once all activities were done, she returned from relaxation already half asleep and Ali had to laugh seeing her face. She had come to visit her, along with, surprisingly, their friends Sydney Dwyer, Alex Morgan -who now had a daughter who was nearly a year old- and Abby Wambach with her wife writer Glennon Doyle, both of which lived in a town nearly four hours by car from Orlando, so Ashlyn heavily appreciated the visit and hated the fact that she would probably not be fully awake for it.

“Baby, they've broken you!” Ali joked with a laugh, hugging her tight as she came. Ashlyn was dressed -she was actually allowed normal clothes, albeit sporty, light ones, for her normal activities- but otherwise she looked as if she'd just gotten out of bed. She smiled into the crook of Ali's neck and hugged her back tightly. “Are you okay?”

“Oh just had a phenomenal mini nap in relaxation, meditation and mindfulness class. I don't even remember what the teacher was saying, there was this soft music and—,” she interrupted herself to yawn hard. “Next I knew I was waking up when they turned the lights back on. Wish high school had been this nice.”

“Sounds like a very effective class,” Abby joked, getting up from her seat on the sofa -where they had been talking for half an hour, as they had arrived a bit early and the nurses had offered them some coffee- to hug her friend, who she hadn't seen in several months. “It's so great to see you Ash... Ali told us what was going on, we had to come. But if you're really tired we can let you rest and come another day.”

“It's okay,” Ashlyn hugged her back. “I've missed you, and being tired is my new state of mind these days anyway, so I'd dare you to find me in any other. Thank you so much for coming, I know it's a long ride.”

“Bah, for a friend it's nothing. It's not like we're super busy.” Abby side smiled, patting her face before Ashlyn went on to hug Glennon and the others. At last, she flopped on the sofa by her wife, and looked around at her new room. Her bed was, at least, made -Ali had helped her out in the morning-, but during her alone time she had been drawing and her visitors had piled up her drawing book and her markers on her bedside table.

“So how was day one?” Sydney asked, giving Ashlyn a gentle smile. Their Pride friends and teammates had all been worried sick after last seeing her at Tammye's funeral, but hadn't known things had gotten so bad, so now Sydney felt a particular motherly worry. However, her friend didn't need to feel guilty about that, so she dissimulated. “Met any bat-shit crazy fans?”

“Thankfully, no. Although there's this teenager girl who's been here for two weeks because the poor thing tried to kill herself after her brother was murdered in a robbery gone wrong, and she still doesn't feel confident enough to be released,” Ashlyn allowed a moment as her companions' lamented it. “She's not very well, but very into soccer, so we played a bit during sports time outdoors. The teacher gave us some freedom to do whatever we wanted. Who do I have to pay for a cup of coffee?” she added, noticing the mugs.

“You are not allowed caffeine, but...” Ali dug in her purse and pulled out a bottle of chocolate and cream smoothie, handing it to her.

“This is why I married you, thank you,” Ashlyn kissed her cheek and rushed to open the bottle, taking a large sip and moaning a little in response. Ali chuckled, biting her tongue to hold back some teasing. “So how's the Pride doing? It's pre-season, right?”

“Starts on Monday,” Alex reminded her. “Syd and I are leaving on Sunday for camp though, so Ali will have to inform you.”

“Excellent, congrats on the call-up,” Ashlyn raised her bottle to them. “And how are everyone's kids?”

“Mine has just learned to climb stairs, she's a danger to herself but they won't allow her here,” Alex joked with a chuckle. Sydney giggled, shaking her head.

“Yeah, Cassius was the same, watch out. But Roux just started soccer with Cassius in the afternoons and I don't want to say anything in front of Cash, but she's way better than him.”

“Girl power,” Glennon smiled at her. She had a three children, Chase, Tish and Amma, and a very girl-power home. “Wait until she's a teenager and you become an official soccer Mum going to those tournaments, is bloody stressful!” she added comically.

“Absolutely not looking forward, I already stress with toddler level,” Sydney said chuckling. “And Dom's encouraging them! If I have to see any of my children have the last PK in a World Cup Final, I'll die for anxiety.”

They laughed it off and Alex elbowed Ali gently.

“Soon you'll be joining the team! Any gender preferences?”

“At this point I'm happy with having a healthy child, period,” replied Ali.

“Good answer,” Abby half-smiled.

“Yeah... although I do have a feeling it's going to be a boy.” Ashlyn commented, leaning onto her wife for cuddles.

“Yeah?” Glennon looked curious.

“Well the child has my DNA, and all my grandparents had boys first, my paternal grandfather was also a first-born, then my parents had a boy first, and all of my cousins came on packs with boys first. On one side I even have three cousins who are siblings and the first two are both boys. Girls just tend to come the last, so statistically... I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if the baby was a boy. In any case, I'm happy as long as is not transgender, kid's gonna inherit their fair odds of getting mental illness, wouldn't want to add having to feel frustrated and upset about being born in the wrong body and having to go through the gruelling process of correcting that.”

“Let's not think of their future issues just yet,” Ali proposed, an arm around Ashlyn's shoulders as she played with her hair. “Hey how was Taekwondo? Didn't you have that today?”

“Oh yeah, it was okay, a lot of kicking, which I'm familiar with,” Ashlyn joked, given her job as a goalkeeper, kicking balls all day long. “Group therapy was sad though. There are so many people with terrible issues...”

“How many are in the group?” Abby inquired holding her coffee between her hands.

“Nine, ten with Dr Walters, my psychotherapist,” Ashlyn replied. “One of them has tried to kill herself six times. Six. And she goes full psycho when she has breakdowns, apparently she sees stuff and all, but her treatment seems to be working now, or so she said. She doesn't have that many things left to try.”

“Is everyone young like you?” asked Alex.

“Most of them are in their thirties and forties... a few are teens, a couple elderly,” Ashlyn shrugged. “Or at least it's how it looks like. I didn't ask. They put it right after two hours of doing all kinds of sports, so I'm happy to sit and listen and rest a bit.”

“And still no voices?” added Ali, as if following a mental checklist guided by concern.

“There was a bit today...” Ashlyn recalled. “For a few minutes while I was kicking some sack in Taekwondo, I was sure I was hearing my late grandfather complaining about how useless what I was doing was. At first I was startled and I told the psychiatrist who was there, and we sat for a bit so I could listen to it and tell it to talk to me later because I was busy. I was just doing whatever the psychiatrist told me to do,” she shrugged. “And he said if it sounded like my grandfather I should just talk to it like I would to him. Problem is I was six the last time I saw him, so I don't remember it too much, but I respectfully said 'Grandpa, if you don't like what I'm doing then go take a break and we can talk later'. It continued for a bit, but the physiotherapist told me to go back to the exercise and see if ignoring it, it'd go away, and it did. Tomorrow I'm supposed to tell Dr Walters anyway. I have to keep a diary of the damn voices.”

“When you say you hear voices,” Alex intervened, “what does it exactly mean? I mean... like we're talking now? You hear someone as if they were sitting chatting with you?”

“Yes and no,” Ashlyn frowned in thought. “I hear them as if they were right by both of my ears at once, but more inside my head than outside. I may hear them as loud and clear as I hear any of you right now, and think someone's right behind me, turn around... or I may hear them in a whisper.”

Her friends looked at her serious, but without judgement or fear, which was a relief.

“And do they tell you to... go kill yourself?” Abby murmured.

“Yesterday, when I ended up here, yes,” Ashlyn nodded. “I didn't find them familiar then though, didn't even find them particularly humane... just harsh and judgemental, trying to convince me I wasn't worth it. And it was odd, because by the time I found myself in the bathroom, which I guess Ali told you about,” they nodded, “I had no idea how I made it there. That was the scariest part. I hadn't consciously wanted to get out of bed and go to the toilet. I didn't need to go to the toilet. And then it was like trying for the voices to not have access to my information and knowledge of having, for example, razors in the cabinet, but of course they already knew. It was like they knew what I was going to try to do to save myself before I did it.”

“Scary...” Glennon murmured, sad for her friend.

“Yeah... but I prefer to hear Grandpa though. I mean, the physiotherapist assured me it's not Grandpa talking from the dead, but my brain using voices I know for some reason, yet still, I'd rather hear a familiar voice telling me whatever crap, that one that sounds scary even if it talked about the weather. And Grandpa's voice wasn't actually too bad. He was just being a grumpy bastard,” she snorted a laugh. “It's funny that actually fits with the guy.”

“Was he a grumpy bastard?” Sydney asked sharing her amusement.

“Well... he was a war veteran,” said Ashlyn with her head on Ali's chest. “So sometimes he may snap easily, but I really don't remember much of him. Chris said he was incredible making things with wood, apparently he made the crib Chris used first and myself second, and made us one of these wooden toy horses where you can sit and rock back and forth. I still have it, Chris let me keep it for whenever I had kids, since he wasn't sure he would.”

“Yeah, it's in the attic,” Ali remembered. “He sounds like a nice guy.”

“I guess he was. He just had grumpy bastard moments, for what my Dad said, and he's not very inclined to talk bullshit of his dead parents-in-law. But he once told me Grandpa could be very comical when he got grumpy, because he was sarcastic-grumpy. So I don't imagine people had to suffer with his mood a lot.”

“Are you sure you're related to that?” Alex related. “You're the least grumpy person I know.”

“Oh she has her moments,” Ali joked. “Remember when you lived alone in the other house and found a snake in the garage? You were grumbling around about it for like half an hour on the phone. I distinctly recall you saying 'couldn't it be a gator, no, it had to be a bloody snake'.”

“You preferred an alligator?” Glennon laughed, and so did them.

“I mean, they're actually really sweet creatures Glen... soft, tender animals,” Ashlyn explained. Sydney looked incredulous and Abby, who was also a Southerner and understood, laughed. Ali raised her eyebrows looking at Sydney.

“Don't listen to her, she's bat-shit crazy,” Ali joked, making them laugh.

Eventually the goalkeeper fell asleep while they were talking, and since dinner time wasn't coming yet, Ali carefully lied her with her head on her lap, and let her have a bit of a nap while caressing her sleepy face.

“How are you doing Ali? This cannot be easy on you, with the baby and all,” Glennon empathized, sitting next to her.

“I'm okay, I'll leave her here tonight, and tomorrow Christopher's coming over and we're taking down all the inside doors in the house, so when she comes back she can't lock herself again. But Dr Walters assured me when she comes back she'll be out of the woods and everything will be easier, and she's still going to be following treatments as an outpatient, so I'm hopeful. Mum is coming over to help out anyway, and Kyle will be here for the first couple of weeks Ashlyn is back home as reinforcement. Ashlyn's relatives need a break.”

“Poor people, how are they?” asked Alex with a worried frown.

“More or less holding up, but I think they're scared shitless Ashlyn will end up the same,” Ali sighed. “I'm confident it'll be okay though.”

“I think you made a good decision not making it public news,” Sydney commented. “I mean, to the outside world, the fans... she doesn't need paparazzi in her ass right now, and no one really needs to know.”

“What's the official version you gave, the one the club is releasing?” Glennon asked out of curiosity, looking between them.

“They posted a full statement online, look,” Sydney got her phone and after a few seconds, passed it to Glennon. The statement had been released on the Orlando Pride's social media and shared and reposted by Ali and other teammates.

' _Following the tragic and sudden passing of her mother on January, Goalkeeper Ashlyn Harris will be excused from the team's training and games until further notice, as she understandably focuses on her and her family's well-being and mourning process. Similarly, her wife and Orlando Pride's defender Ali Krieger will also be absent while she focuses on the care of her wife and family in law. In the name of the whole Orlando Pride organization, we would like to send our love and best wishes to the family during these difficult moments, and hope for all of you to join us sending your best to them too._ '

Ali had added one small statement of her own along when she had shared the club's post.

' _Thank you to our incredible bosses, teammates & friends at the Orlando Pride for always being so supportive and understanding._

_Ashlyn has always been open with all of you about her mental health issues and battles, so many of you probably understand how this situation is specially delicate for her, and as her wife, I simply wouldn't feel comfortable nor focused continuing to train & play soccer while she could be struggling inside and alone. And at the same time, we feel our families have come second to soccer so many times and now it is time to put them first and hold onto each other tight, because together we can go through any storms better than we would apart._

_All we ask of you is space and time to process, especially for Ashlyn, her father and her brother, who've lost someone who was incredibly important and beloved to them in a very shocking and sudden manner, and who deserve for everyone to respect their privacy and mourning process through this time._

_Ashlyn was adamant no one was made to worry and be kept in the dark while we unexpectedly vanished from public life for a while to grieve, and so I will be happy to read your best comments to our family for you, and transmit to them all your support and love, but otherwise we'll both retreat from public life & work for a while and hope you can be patient and supportive and let us be until we're ready to return._

_Thank you so much._

_Ali xxx_ '

“Clear, concise and discreet,” Glennon approved, returning the phone to Sydney. “Hopefully they'll listen and not pressure, instead of going on daily trips to Satellite Beach in hopes of catching a grieving relative.”

“Crossing fingers,” Ali nodded, and looked down at Ashlyn.

At least in dreams she could enter a world of her own, where she was safe, protected and hopefully worry-free, and where death was unthinkable.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone,  
> I am updating some stories now, I'll slowly update more and more the next few days. I'm very sorry for the delay, I've just been writing stuff, relaxing, reconnecting with my mother as I didn't live in my hometown since last Autumn, and well, with myself.  
> So first things first, thanks everyone for all your comments and support, always. I think I've responded all comments and also I've been talking with some of you in my Tumblr Jantebellum, which has been really nice so if you've never left a comment or chatted with me in Tumblr come say hi, I don't bite :) also I wanted to invite you all to read this post I wrote https://jantebellum.tumblr.com/post/616297711696822272/my-take-on-ao3-and-fanfics it's a bit long but in it I'm talking about my writing process with fanfics, about my beliefs in fanfiction and about Archive of our Own, so you might find it interesting. And I know you're shy and I'm shy but PLEASE hit me up with any sort of conversation. Now that we're all so isolated, I really want to reach out to all of you, make sure you're all doing okay, bring my support and encouragement to you and hey, it's going to be okay, uh? This is just those dramatic ten chapters I always write but remember, the story always ends okay, even when you think there's no way. And if you feel lonely or anything, I'm here.  
> Much love everyone.  
> J.


	8. Conceal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://jantebellum.tumblr.com/post/616566533139873792/thank-you

**Chapter 8: Conceal.**

Usually, Ashlyn was sleeping well. The routine provided by the hospital meant that she was reasonably exhausted and ready for bed by the time she finished dinner, so she usually went to bed early, choosing to eat quickly so she could return to bed quickly, even if it meant Ali, who so far hadn't missed a meal with her, had to leave sooner. However, on her fourth night in hospital, Ashlyn found herself unexpectedly awaken, her breathing fast from adrenaline, as she heard a man screaming his lungs out.

“What the fuck?!” she sat up, looking around. And there she spotted the source. A man was sitting at the feet of her bed, shouting. He stopped shouting and looked at her, and although the only source of light was the dimly one from the corridor, that came through the room's large inside window and glass door, Ashlyn still recognized her, and her heart seemed to flip. “Grandpa?! The fuck... you're dead! You've been dead thirty years!”

“Funny, isn't it?” he said. “But I'm here.”

“How...?” then it dawned on her. “Of course,” she puffed, “you're just in my head. You're not real.”

“Hey, more respect for your Grandpa!”

“Oh come on, old grumpy bastard, you're just a creation from my brain. My actual Grandpa is well dead,” Ashlyn shook her head and lied back down. “Go away, it's fucking...” she checked her watch. “Four, dude. I'm tired, I want to sleep.”

“Oh but I'm bored! Come on, let's...” he looked around, trying to find a proper entertainment. “Okay, maybe here is not a good idea. Let's go out, have a drink!”

“You're more out of your mind than I am if you think I'm going anywhere tonight, let alone for a drink,” Ashlyn could not drink while on medication, due to the risk of interaction. It was okay with Vortioxetine, but not with Esketamine, a stronger drug, so until she was released from the hospital and stopped taking the later one, she shouldn't drink a drop of alcohol.

She hugged a pillow and closed her eyes, ignoring him. But then she felt as if someone had hit her head hard and she sat up, yelping in pain, rubbing her head.

“I said I'm bored! Let's go!” he shouted, standing by her side. Her eyes widened, suddenly afraid.

“How did you do that? You're a hallucination, you can't touch me.”

“Oh really?” he slapped her with the back of his hand and she felt it as real, and yelped from the pain, touching her face.

“You leave me alone!” Ashlyn tried to punch him, but he disappeared and she almost fell forward, sitting in bed.

“I just want to go to party,” he said very calmly, appearing again by the door. “Let's go! Hop hop!”

“Fuck off,” Ashlyn turned and reached for the nurses' call button by her bed but before she could grab it, she saw him reappear in front of her and grab her throat with his hands. Automatically, she felt like she was being strangled hard and she couldn't breathe. Her hands reached for her neck yet she couldn't grab his hands, and she just felt herself run out of air, her vision blurry. She couldn't scream. She was completely powerless.

“Mrs Harris! What are you doing?”

The man had disappeared, even though the feeling of strangulation prevailed, and a nurse ran to Ashlyn, turning the lights on and taking her hands.

“I... breathe...” she tried to say, her hands on her own throat. Thinking she was strangulating herself, the nurse pulled her hands away and then realized Ashlyn seemed to be asphyxiating on her own, so she grabbed an oxygen mask and put it in place.

“You can breathe, there's nothing wrong with your airways or lungs,” the nurse said soothingly. “Just deep in from your nose, out through your mouth, focus on my voice...”

“What a party popper,” Ashlyn's grandfather appeared mockingly behind the nurse. “Call me when you're more fun.” He disappeared and the feeling of strangulation vanished as well, but the fear had been so great that Ashlyn started crying heavily.

“It's okay sweetie, you're fine,” the nurse took the mask off and sat on the bed, hugging her close. “You're okay now.”

“M-my wife...” Ashlyn sobbed out. “I-I want... you c-call her...”

“Okay, wait,” the nurse saw her phone on the bedside table and gave it to Ashlyn, who with shaking hands initiated the call. The nurse put the phone on speaker and keep massaging soothing circles on her back.

It took a couple beeps but Ali was quick to answer, sounding somewhat alarmed, as anyone would getting a call in the middle of the night from your sick in hospital wife.

“Babe? Are you all right?” then Ali registered the crying. “Sweetie what's wrong? What's wrong?”

“Alex come...” Ashlyn managed to cry out. “Come...!”

“All right, I'm moving!” Ali hurried to say. “But tell me what's wrong honey. Do I need to call your doctor? Are you hurt?” she sounded so anguished the nurse intervened.

“Mrs Krieger, it's Nurse Cathy, I'm with your wife. She seems to have just had very bad hallucinations and as you can hear, she's very upset and was asking for you. I'll phone Dr Walters, but if you could come to help comfort Ashlyn, that'd be great.”

Ali sighed in relief.

“I'll be right there. Do you hear me darling? I'll be right there. I love you, but I have to hang up to get ready faster, okay? Just half an hour tops and then I promise I'll be there. Can you wait that for me love?”

“O-Okay...” Ashlyn sobbed, trying and failing to calm herself. “I-I l-love y-you...”

“I love you. It's going to be okay baby, it's all in your head. It's not real. I'll be there soon. Nurse Cathy? Can you stay with her until I get there?”

“Don't worry, I'll be here.”

“Okay, thank you!”

Ali went as fast as she could, throwing a coat over her pyjamas and grabbing her car keys on the run. In the end, she was there in twenty minutes, and Dr Walters, who lived just by the hospital, was sitting on her wife's bed holding her tight while she was still crying, albeit softer. Nurse Cathy stood by, looking saddened.

“I'm here,” Ali burst into the room, hair dishevelled in her messy sleep-time bun, and Ashlyn pulled away from the doctor and looked at her, so miserably that Ali felt something shatter in her insides. She had been doing so remarkably well, she had been fine when Ali left her that evening, even cracking jokes, and now she was red from crying, with her face shining wet, her eyes red and damp, and her nose a bit snotty. “Baby what happened?” Ali rushed to her and the doctor moved so she could occupy her place, hugging the upset woman tight. “Sweetie, what's wrong?” she kissed the top of her head, and frowned finding her sweaty and too warm. “She has a fever and she's shaking like a leaf,” she added turning to Dr Walters, “what is going on?”

“For what we could understand, it appears Ashlyn had a strong hallucination with her grandfather in the middle of the night, that really scared her,” Dr Walters explained, looking concerned. “She hallucinated that he got very angry and strangled her, and her body actually hallucinated the strangulation so well she felt it as completely real. She must've been really afraid thinking she was going to die.”

“Oh my God is that possible?” Ali scowled, full of worry, and held Ashlyn as tight as physically possible.

“Is very uncommon, but sometimes hallucinations can go that far, yes. I can give her something to soothe her now and the dose of Esketamine she usually gets after breakfast, so she can sleep some, and then whenever she's ready to start the day, she can reincorporate to her usual routine. They have boxing today, which should feel nice.”

“All right,” Ali nodded, leaning her cheek against Ashlyn's head and rubbing her head. “Sh... you're fine now sweetie, he's gone. He's not coming back.”

“He could touch me,” Ashlyn said with her voice hoarse from so much crying. “He wasn't supposed to, he couldn't two days ago when I first saw him, but now he could, and I couldn't touch him to push him away. I... there was nothing I could do.” She sniffled, and Ali understood her fear. She almost died killed by something her brain created and that she could do absolutely nothing against. “He got angry because I was going to press the nurse's button, that's why he did it... What am I gonna do if I can kill myself without actually killing myself? How the hell am I supposed to fight this?” she asked in desperation, holding onto Ali with the desperation and despair of a drowning man holding onto a floating device.

“We'll make some changes to the rTMS, make it more effective,” Dr Walters assured. “We can raise the doses of drugs as well, they were pretty low. We won't stop until the hallucinations are completely gone and the depression as gone as we can manage in short time, okay? There are plenty of options we haven't tried yet. Cathy can you please get the Esketamine?”

“Right away doctor.” The nurse left, and Ali coaxed Ashlyn to lie back down, tucking her with the blanket.

“I'm here,” Ali kissed her lips gently, climbing on the bed and letting Ashlyn snuggle into her chest. “This won't happen again. He won't hurt you again, and neither will any other hallucination, okay?”

“You can't promise that,” Ashlyn murmured.

“I can promise you if someone even tries to harm you, real or not, I will kick their ass so hard I'll send their ass from here to Naples, and not the one in Florida.”

“Here,” Dr Walters held the small spray and passed it to Ashlyn. “We'll do three doses every five minutes, okay? So one now, and I'll count.”

Ashlyn nodded and sprayed the medicine into her nose, closing her eyes. She was miserable and exhausted.

It was going to be a hard day. When half past twelve came, lunch was brought to Ashlyn's bed, from where she had barely moved. She had slept through breakfast time and the consequent break, but Ali woke her up at nine for therapy, and Dr Walters came to her room and brought some food so Ashlyn could eat something while they talked. Ali was present, but she was so tired she disconnected from most of it and was just lying next to Ashlyn on the bed, that was bent upwards so they were almost sitting, holding one of her hands between her own to comfort her. Then they managed to convince Ashlyn to go to rTMS, during which time Ali had a nap, and she returned to bed for another fifty minutes.

“We'll skip family therapy for today, having in count family's been here for hours,” Dr Walters smiled compassionately at Ali, passing her some lunch as well. “But Ashlyn, you're back to normal routine at four for boxing, okay?”

“I don't want to,” Ashlyn murmured, lazily staring at her soup.

“Well you don't want to eat but you have to, you don't want to do boxing but you have to... welcome to trying to stay healthy, you do want to live, right?”

“Yes... but there's no point. My body can go in auto kill mode, didn't you hear? I don't even have to approve it.”

Dr Walters sighed in disapproval.

“This is exactly why you're going back to your routine. I'm not having you lying here all day wallowing in self-pity, not on my watch.”

“Good thing you're not the boss of me... and I'm not wallowing in self-pity. I'm stating a known fact.”

“You want known facts?” Dr Walters was restless. “Fact 1, if you don't make an effort to get out of bed and do the activities that are going to help you, you're only going to feel worse and worse. Fact 2, the worse you feel the weaker you'll be, so it'll be easier for the voices to return, your psychosis to worsen, and fact 3, this will make you jump off a bridge in despair and die. Fact 4, if you die, your brother will have to bury his mother and little sister to suicide not just in the same year, but in the matter of two months. Fact 5, your unborn child will then never meet their Mama, and will grow up with a genetic predisposition to depression and a growing fear to die from it just like their mother and grandmother, which will actually worsen their odds, and the kid will be dead before they're even twenty-one, leaving your wife all alone and heartbroken for life, with heavy odds of committing suicide herself too. Fact 6, all of this will also mean you've fought your whole life, sacrificed so much, worked so hard, for absolutely nothing. So by all means Ashlyn, if that's what you want, please be my guest, don't eat and stay here all bed. Make it easy for the demons in your head to kill you.”

Ashlyn narrowed her eyes to the doctor and then looked at Ali, who was staring at her feet, and nodded slowly, grabbing her spoon.

“Fine, I'll do my thing, didn't have to be so dark, gee...”

“In all seriousness Ashlyn, you have to remember that at this point, and with the state your family is in, their history and all they have suffered, if you give up your treatment you might as well just grab a knife and stab them in the heart, because that's what your suicide will do to them. Suicide can easily provoke chain effects, which is part of the reason why it is so bloody dangerous. And you wouldn't stab your family so... hold onto that treatment for dear life.”

The goalkeeper took a deep breath and nodded.

“I'm just feeling very hopeless today.”

“Hope is not something that you just find. You have to look for it. In that treatment there's hope, Ash... out of it there's only darkness.”

“Yes,” Ashlyn conceded. “Yes, you're right. What am I going to do once you discharge me, though? I had a phenomenal couple days with no hallucinations or nothing, and still this happened, I may have a phenomenal next few days and it still doesn't mean something like last night won't happen again.”

“You stick to treatment as an outpatient. You take Vortioxetine every day as taught, come here every three days for your rTMS, you come here every day for individual therapy and counselling, we keep family therapy twice a week and group therapy thrice a week, you do your sports with your club, and you do your meditation at home every day, one hour right before bed. And if you can't by yourself, you can come here and do it, you know when it happens. You keep your faith and your hopes on this treatment, we believe in a better tomorrow, and if things come crashing and you worsen, I'm here and I've got your back. If you trust me and you trust this treatment I can help you, but you have to commit and you have to believe, I can't have you wasting a single bit of your energy on thinking what if you die, you know? Instead... think what if you live? What if you get to continue with your life and get to forget what if feels like to be very depressed, from how from another life it begins to feel when you leave it in the past?”

“I get to see my child grow old. I get to have more children. I get to maybe play with my own grandchildren one day...”

“Exactly. How hard do you want that?”

“Harder than I ever wanted anything.” Ashlyn replied sincerely.

“Then fight harder than you've ever fought for anything, Ms Olympian. If you want something you've never had, you have to do something you've never done to achieve it. If you want to achieve goals that feel impossible, you have to do things that feel impossible. Otherwise, you stay where you are and never move forward.”

Ashlyn looked at her as if she had had a sudden revelation and Dr Walters smiled and nodded, turning to leave.

“Wait. Dr Walters, why do you insist so much I do martial arts? I could just... do machines.”

The doctor turned to answer, looking at her.

“You spend a terrible amount of energy every day on fighting invisible demons. Sometimes fighting something you can see helps see the fighter you can be.”

When the doctor left, as per usual giving her food for thought, Ali sat on the edge of the bed and squeezed her thigh gently.

“She's right, you know? I believe in you. You should, too.”

“I've never been more afraid than last night, Ali. And you know that coming from me, that's a big thing to say. My brain, whose supposed to keep those supposedly innate human survival instincts going, betrayed me. It turned against me. My own brain.”

Ali squeezed her hand, bringing it to her lips.

“Then your brain has no idea who Ashlyn Michelle Harris is, but you do, and I do. And I happen to recall she's not easy to intimidate. Legend says she slaps bullies with dead fish.”

“But baby that makes no sense. I am my brain, we know the same stuff...”

“Think about it,” Ali smiled small and got up. “I need to pee, our baby likes napping by my bladder.”

Ashlyn frowned in thought and looked down at the stuffed shark on her lap. Everyone was right and, sharks, after all, never turned away from a good, bloody fight...

...Why would she?

  
  



	9. Where does the good go?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting to the end! thanks so much for hanging out with me here. And if you have any other krashlyn fanfic ideas please let me know 'cause i'm struggling for inspiration and i'll give credit ;D

**Chapter 9: Where does the good go?**

In the end, Ashlyn was in hospital for nearly two weeks, but after four consecutive days of feeling great, doing great and no voices, her release was decided. There was still a long way to go, but at least now she was considered capable of fighting independently. She packed her own bags, feeling a mixture of vertigo and hope, like a prisoner leaving prison and praying to make a good life now, and tidied-up her room, before making her way out with Dr Walters.

“How are you feeling?” the doctor asked as they walked side-by-side.

“Like I can't wait to stun myself doing what I didn't think I could do,” Ashlyn smiled small, and as they stopped in the lift, she turned to her. “Thanks to you I get to believe. To dream of tomorrow. To make plans. I owe you my life.”

“Just keep fighting, okay? Don't be one more name at the end of the year in the list of people who didn't make it.”

“I promise,” said Ashlyn. The doors opened in the lobby and immediately she heard a loud and excited 'YAY!' and turned, grinning, to see her wife beaming at her, arms up. The brunette ran to her enthusiastically and Ashlyn had just enough time to exit the lift and drop the holdall before her wife jumped on her arms, and she had to put her forearms under her ass to hold her, as Ali hugged her hips with her legs and held her face in her hands, kissing her.

“There's my favourite,” Ali grinned, kissing her again. “Ready to go home?”

“Super ready,” Ashlyn grinned right back, and picked-up the holdall as Ali got back on her feet and hugged Dr Walters, emotionally hugging her and thanking her repeatedly.

“Take care, family. I'll see you tomorrow for therapy, right?” Dr Walters raised an eyebrow at her, side smiling.

“You bet,” Ashlyn grinned, hugging her once more. “You're amazing doc. Thank you.”

“You're stronger than you think, you just need to believe hard, okay? I won't wish you good luck because you don't need it, you have everything you need.”

“Okay.” They separated.

“Anything you need, just call me.”

The doctor stood back and smiled observing the couple walk away, with Ashlyn holding the holdall in one strong hand and keeping the other protectively around her shoulders, grinning at her as Ali happily told her something. She so hoped they'd be all right.

The matrimony got into the car and, since Ashlyn still had six months of rTMS to go and couldn't drive while on it, Ali got into the driver's seat and Ashlyn made herself comfortable next to her, putting her sunglasses on and enjoying the feeling of freedom.

“Okay what do you want to do first? Ice-cream? Dog walk? Oh! Beach?”

Ashlyn grinned, shaking her head.

“I just want to be home, with my wife, having a coke on the rocks and a dog or two on the lap.” She had been dreaming about having a beer upon arrival home, but her doctor had just told her earlier that morning that apparently alcohol wasn't a good combination with rTMS.

“Sounds good,” Ali leaned over the console to kiss her cheek. “But first things first, I have a present for you.”

“Aw baby you shouldn't have...”

They were still parked in the outdoors parking lot, so Ali grabbed her phone and, with her tongue between her teeth from excitement, searched for something. Then, Ashlyn heard her phone reproduce some sort of drumming sound. It took her a moment to realize what it was, and her eyes widened.

“Is that...?” Ali nodded.

“Our baby's heartbeat,” Ashlyn grinned. “I had an appointment yesterday, because I had a silly fall training and tripping with my own feet, I'm completely fine, so's the baby, nothing to worry about... but I didn't want to worry you and I got photos of the ultrasound and everything so you wouldn't miss out, and... listen. That's our child.”

“Oh my God,” Ashlyn giggled spontaneously. “Oh my God, we're having a baby. A healthy baby. We're having a baby!” she raised her hands up in excitement without thinking and punched the ceiling by accident, which made her pout and rub her knuckles. Ali laughed.

“And that's not all I got. Which leads to present two,” Ali stretched to grab a small bag from the back-seat and gave it to Ashlyn, who opened it enthusiastically. She beamed seeing it was a baby onesie.

“I thought we were waiting until next week, when the miscarriage risk decreases, to buy stuff...”

“I know. But really, look at it.”

Ashlyn chuckled and focused on the onesie. It was light grey, with a blue shark, and it said in playful typing style 'Baby Shark do doo do do doo', which made her guffaw. It was Ali-like to tease her like that. But then her eyes caught attention of the small message beneath the shark, in thick, black letters. 'Mommas' Little Prince, October '21 '.

“Oh,” Ashlyn snorted a laugh, amazed and shocked. “Oh my... we're having a boy? It's a boy?!” she grinned at Ali, who giggled and nodded, and kissed her.

“You were right. The first boy of our home,” Ali beamed, kissing her back.

“Poor thing,” Ashlyn joked, and kept grinning, staring from Ali to the little short-sleeved onesie. “We're raising a feminist gentleman. Oh, this is gonna be so much fun...” she laughed excitedly, in disbelief. “We're having a son!”

“Can't wait for all the fun of life with the both of you,” Ali kissed her cheek. “I love you.”

“Baby you have no idea how happy I am. I love you so much.” Ashlyn said with glassy eyes. “You're everything.”

Ali grinned right back at her, caressing her cheek, and Ashlyn excitedly hugged the onesie against her chest. She couldn't wait to meet their son. Ali began to drive away and soon enough they were home. Ashlyn had missed their house like crazy. They had first lived together in the house Ashlyn bought when she moved to Orlando several years back to first play for the Orlando Pride, but ever since their wedding a little over a year before, they had moved into a bigger house for the children they planned on having.

Their new home was two storeys big instead of one, plus a small lovely attic that served as a little relax room and a basement that served as a large, organized by sections and alphabetically, storage room. They had a kitchen with a medium-sized round table where they often sat to have breakfast, an adjacent dining room ready for big family meals with a large rectangular table where fourteen people could sit comfortably, and between eighteen and twenty if squeezed a little bit, a large living room with a C-shaped sofa thanks to one chaise longue and a large TV, a small sitting room to just chill and play board games, an office, four bathrooms, and up to five bedrooms, one of which they had emptied to leave it as a baby room, while another was their master bedroom, leaving three other bedrooms fully ready for guests. To that added a gorgeous, albeit smaller garden than the one they had in the other house, with a barbecue area with exterior coffee tables and exterior sofas, then a medium-sized salt-water pool they had had built while on honeymoon, and still a decent portion of garden was free for running and playing around. Over Christmas, they had also hung a basketball net on the wall behind their garage, so like Ali used to do as a child with her brother, their children could play throwing some balls.

When they arrived and Ali parked in the garage next to Ashlyn's car, Ashlyn exited the vehicle feeling butterflies of excitement in her stomach. She could hear the dogs against the window that connected with the living room, barking and scratching the door, and went to open it, but Ali stopped her.

“Let's go through the front door,” Ali said, grabbing her bags. “I want to check the mail box and see how the painters left the front face of the house. They were here early this morning.”

“Oh, all right,” Ashlyn grabbed her backpack from Ali and threw it on her bag, following her out of the large garage door, that closed behind them, and towards their mailbox by the front fence's door. Ali gathered some letters and smiled at her, motioning to the front door. “Nice painting,” Ashlyn added checking the front of the house. It was the same colour, but now and then it needed a new hand of paint.

“Yeah, they did a good job,” Ali nodded, following her up the stone path to their door. “I wanted the house to look exceptionally nice for you baby.”

“Aw, thank you,” Ashlyn chuckled. She still had the onesie in her hand as she pushed the security code in the entry to unlock the door. It also had a key, so you had to use both to go in, although normally when one of them was at home, or they had guests, they turned off the password lock and left just the key, so they wouldn't have to share the code with their guests.

The minute she opened the door, she heard the dogs make a run for it and squatted right on time to receive two very excited dogs. Logan had such a size and strength that when she put her front paws on Ashlyn's shoulders to give her face a good lick Ali had to stand behind her to use her legs to stop Ashlyn from falling backwards, while both women cracked-up, but little Storm was so tiny Ashlyn had to make sure Logan wouldn't accidentally squash her with her excitement, and pick her up on one arm.

“Your girls missed you!” Ali said happily, turning the hall's light on and taking photos of them with her phone.

“God I missed them. Hi! Hi!” Ashlyn grinned, trying to avoid dog tongue in her mouth and scratching their hairy ears and bodies. “Hello, I missed you too yeah, yeah I did,” she used her silliest voice to talk with the dogs, “I love you, yeah, I love you so much...”

Ali pet the dogs a little bit, putting the holdall down on a side, and closed the front door behind them, offering a hand to help Ashlyn get up.

“Come on babe, let's go inside,” the door had no more indoor doors, because Ali had removed them for safety reasons with Christopher and Mike's help, so as they walked on, Ashlyn got a perfect view of a toilet seat, which wasn't nearly as bizarre as Ali suddenly shouting, “Pride on three!” as they entered the dark living room.

But before Ashlyn could ask, the lights turned on and a loud.

“WELCOME HOME ASH!” reverberated in the room.

Ashlyn grinned, surprised, seeing the room was full of many of her loved ones. Her Dad and brother, some of her cousins, aunts and uncles, Ali's parents and Kyle, plus Kyle's boyfriend and Kyle's dog Angus, and their friends the Dwyer-Leroux, the Doyle-Wambach, the Carrasco-Morgan, and a bunch of others.

“Oh my God!” Ashlyn laughed, interlacing her hands over her mouth as she saw in amazement how wonderful the party they had prepared for her was. There was a big 'WELCOME HOME FROM THE MAD-HOUSE ASH' hanging on a wall, everyone had party hats and party whistles they were blowing, there were colourful decorations hung everywhere, the surfaces were full of trays of food, everyone had drinks... it just seemed like fun. “You guys thank you! Oh my this is awesome!”

Soon the music was up and everyone was walking around talking, you could hear laughter on and off, the food was great and the drinks, all non-alcoholic beverages in solidarity with Ashlyn, who had it forbidden, and the former ex alcoholics in the room, and Ashlyn was soon enthusiastically catching up with her loved ones.

A couple hours later, Ashlyn found Ali in the kitchen getting more snacks and hugged her from behind, kissing her cheek.

“You are the most amazing, phenomenal woman in the world,” Ashlyn said full of gratitude. “And I love you to the fucking moon and back, you know?” Ali sniggered, blushing.

“So you're happy? I was hoping you wouldn't be too tired for a party.”

“Are you kidding? I get to see most of my favourite people at once, and they're not afraid or disgusted Ali! They love me and still look at me like I'm something wonderful, and don't judge me... this is absolutely dreamy.”

“I'm so glad,” Ali kissed her, cupping her face. “You deserve all the good things.”

“Then I sure deserve a dance with my wife. Come on, someone else can get the chips.”

“All right...” Ali chuckled and followed her, rushing back to dancing with their people.

Everyone already knew about the baby, due to the circumstances, even though initially they had planned to wait another week until the risk of miscarriage went significantly lower, and during the party they revealed the gender, no longer caring about keeping secrets for caution. Given all that had happened, they needed to hold onto every little good new, and knowing a healthy baby boy was on the way was damn good news. So when most of their guests left hours later, Ashlyn grabbed Ali in one hand and the new onesie in the other, and asked Kyle Krieger, Ali's big brother who always had a professional camera in one hand, to take a picture of them. And so they posed, standing up and kissing, smiles visible through their kiss, while Ashlyn put an arm around Ali's shoulder and held the onesie with both hands, from the shoulders, exposing the message, and Ali wrapped both arms around her waist. Ashlyn didn't care if the hospital bracelet was still present in her wrist, or that she wasn't wearing any make-up; she loved the photograph and planned to use it for whenever they publicly revealed the happy news.

The moment finally came not one, but two weeks later, when as April finished its first tenner and the weather became warmer and sunnier, Ali found herself on the first day of pregnancy week fifteen. Coincidentally, it was the same day Ashlyn turned two weeks out of the hospital and hallucinations-free, every day feeling a bit stronger, happier, and more stable. She had returned to the Club, was training with them and had her first game back in two days when Sunday came, and felt quite hundred percent, able to start mourning her mother in healthy ways and not being afraid all the time of succumbing to mental illness, and the two had just had a doctor's appointment to confirm everything was going great and Ali was in her second trimester.

“I am the happiest person in the world. Officially,” Ashlyn concluded happily as they sat in a park near the hospital to have some lunch post appointment. The sentence made Ali feel incredible waves of happiness.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“You don't know how happy that makes me,” Ali said gleefully.

Ashlyn chuckled, kissing her hard on the lips, and caressed her pregnant belly, that now had begun to curve towards the outside.

“I think I'm ready to share the news with the world. But all of them. Mum's suicide, almost dying myself, but also... this wonderful, amazing experience that's coming for us.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Ashlyn nodded. “As long as you agree, that is.”

“Yeah,” Ali pecked her lips. “I'm with you until the end and beyond, baby.”

Ashlyn still waited until night time, when Ali was asleep with her head and an arm over a pillow on her lap, and Ashlyn sat up in bed, watching Netflix on the TV and caressing Ali's hair and shoulder.

She started by browsing for good photographs on her phone. She wanted to make an Instagram post with her favourites, so she began with the picture with the onesie, continued with their latest ultrasound picture, a picture of them both with Tammye on their wedding day, one of Tammye with her when she was a baby, and lastly one of Ashlyn and Ali grinning at the camera with arms over each other while Ali wore a funny t-shirt they had found that said 'PREGOSAURUS' and had a big dinosaur on the front, and Ashlyn had one that merely stated 'NOT THE FATHER' on top of an LGBT flag. Ashlyn chuckled at that last picture and looked down to her wife, who slept with a hand absently on her belly. God she loved her.

Her thumbs seemed to write on their own.

' _2021 is being the most challenging year already and it's only just begun. But today, I am thankful, I am grateful, I am joyful, and I am hopeful, because against all odds, I am alive. And I owe it all to my incredible wife Ali, our wonderful family & friends, and the incredible professionals at Orlando Health Psychiatric & Mental Health Centre._

_Three months ago, Ali and I found out there was a baby on the way. A Little Prince who will bless us with his arrival in October, and that today reaches the 15_ _th_ _week on the making. Shortly after, we discovered my mother hanging from the neck in her house, where we had appeared to surprise her and were the ones surprised. My Mum survived after I spent about 15-20 min performing CPR on her, scared as hell of losing her, only to then discover she was brain dead and we had to let her go._

_After that. I sank. I have struggled with my mental health for as long as I can remember, and this time, despite the joy in my heart that only motherhood & a wonderful wife can bring, I felt myself spiral out of control as I feared I'd end-up like my mother, despite my best efforts. I lost hope, I lost my optimism, and then I lost myself. When I had a psychotic outbreak that almost ended with me committing suicide, my wife had the bravery, strength and intelligence to put me into a mental health hospital where I followed two weeks of treatment in March. I wasn't mourning my mother's death. I wasn't grieving. I was trying to recover my faith in survival, in happy endings, to believe I would survive what my mother couldn't, to become stronger and tougher, and to stop my brain from having the symptoms of psychosis that were sinking me in despair at light speed. I needed to be able to trust myself and my brain again, and I couldn't do this when my own brain betrayed me and tried to kill me._

_Twice I almost ended-up dead, twice I was saved by the bell -first in an stellar intervention from my wife while I remained locket in a room full of razors and toxic products I could ingest, second in a stellar intervention from Nurse Cathy, who helped me when my body was hallucinating a strangulation with such realism I was actually unable to breathe- but now, I am okay._

_Today my wife and I listened to our baby's heartbeat, were reassured about his and her's good health by our doctor, had a romantic stroll around the park with our dogs allowing ourselves to dream of tomorrow again with hearts full of positivism, and I crossed a day more off the calendar without psychosis, without crying -well, I do tear up of happiness almost daily, but that doesn't count-, without feeling like I'm losing myself or like there's no hope for me. Today I know I'm back on track and I have what it takes to survive, if only I keep remembering to believe, and I am finally allowed to grieve, to mourn... and also to live, to hope, to enjoy, to fight._

_So I wanted to share with you the good and the bad, to celebrate this wonderful life with you, and to thank everyone who made all of this possible;_

_\- Thank you to my wife, @alikrieger, who supports me no matter what, who pregnant and all has carried me on her shoulders until I could walk on my own, who loves me unconditionally and who is on board with making bat-shit crazy jokes now that we're ready to darkly laugh about the ugly memories. And of course, the one who said yes, who keeps choosing me, and who's now cooking our Little Prince._

_\- Thank you to the team in Hospital, with big shout-out to Dr Walters, to my all-time therapist, to the fellow Mad Men and Mad Women... I owe each new day I see to each of you. You inspire me, you help me, you support me and you reassure me through the bad and the ugly, and I am a better fighter because of you._

_\- And thank you to our families and our friends, to the Orlando Pride organization, to my teammates, and to everyone who instead of fearing me and judging me, wrapped me in their love and encouragement and gave me strength when I lacked it, a shoulder to cry on, and the patience to support me. I could not do this without you._

_I will be back on the field this Sunday... ready to punch some balls outta my net and bleed purple with all of you!! Thank you all for all the help and good wishes. Together, we thrive!_ '

  
  



	10. Dylan Elijah Krieger-Harris

**Chapter 10: Dylan Elijah Krieger-Harris.**

A loud cry echoed in the house and for a moment Ashlyn strongly contemplated faking asleep -or illness- before she remembered her wife did so much in the house, had her nipples daily abused by their days-old son, and the least she could do was get up when the shark was hungry or did himself dirty.

“Don't worry, I'm on it,” Ashlyn stopped Ali from sitting up and kissed her cheek, gently pushing her back on the bed, on which Ali flopped with a groan, eyes closed.

Ashlyn rushed out of bed and found both of their dogs already standing around the baby's crib. And even though the little Gotzilla was crying and she was sleep-deprived, she had to admit he was the cutest thing in the world. She didn't know any other human who could simultaneously terrorize her and amaze her beyond belief in mere seconds. She scooped him up in her arms, rubbing his back soothingly and kissing his small mane of soft, wavy, dark blonde hair, while simultaneously checking his nappies. He seemed to have wet himself, and was too picky to withstand it.

“It's okay buddy, Mama's got you,” Ashlyn found nappies and quickly changed the boy, snorted a laugh as the removal of the dirty nappy immediately made the boy stop crying. His greyish eyes, that she had only actually seen twice or thrice, squeezed shut, and he stretched with his arms up, making her feel a pang in her chest from how cute he was. She leaned to kiss his round belly and chest, and tickled the rolls up his arms and legs. He was still so pink, and already had the signature Harris dimple, in the same side as Ashlyn herself. “God I love you so much Dylan. I do.”

“Since he's already woken me up,” Ali murmured half asleep. “You might as well bring him over so I too can admire our masterpiece.”

Ashlyn giggled and, putting the pyjama onesie back on their son, scooped him up again and took him to Ali. They lied down, baby between them, and Ali's nose smelled for her offspring before her lips found his cheek, eyes remaining closed. Ashlyn grinned. It was amazing how cute the pair could be, and how Ali's maternal instincts automatically awoke to identify and approach her baby. Her vagina wasn't still quite the same -and Ali sometimes jokingly dead-panned it would never be- but at least everything had gone just fine.

Ashlyn couldn't really go back to sleep, so she kissed her wife and their son, put her pillow on her place just in case Dylan rolled -although she really didn't expect a days' old to roll- and went downstairs to let the dogs out before preparing breakfast. Ali came downstairs, while nursing Dylan, when Ashlyn was just putting their plates of pancakes on the table, and she grinned, sleepily looking at her wife. Ashlyn always had a feeling of her heart skipping a beat every time she turned and saw her round, still pregnant-looking wife, with her cheeks having become rounder too, her breasts more generous, and then cradling the best they had ever done together.

“Good morning,” Ashlyn grinned, walking over to her and leaning forward to kiss her before offering her a chair and accommodating cushions behind her back to make breastfeeding more comfortable.

“Thank you, good morning babe... aw this smells so good, thanks!”

“Anything for you baby. And for our actual baby,” Ashlyn stroked their son's hair and kissed the top of Ali's head, sitting with them for breakfast and taking turns between grabbing a bite herself and cutting Ali's pancakes and feeding her, as Ali's hands were busy with the baby.

“So how long are we having you today?” the goalkeeper checked her watch before answering.

“Well I still have twenty minutes here, before I have to shower and get dressed. Do you think I should go bun for my last game ever? Or maybe loose...”

“You can't leave it loose Ash, it's only slightly long but enough to get on your eyes, or worse, while you're jumping around,” Ali re-accommodated their son to free one hand of hers and affectionately caressed Ashlyn's hair. It was once again platinum, stylish, and a complete morning mess. “You could do a semi bun, so you don't have to choose one thing.”

“Ah, I like the way you think honey,” Ashlyn's lips composed a grin and she turned to kiss her palm as Ali's hands were about to leave her head.

“So how is the mood? Not dying in sadness in the inside?” Ali asked with a worried glance and an understanding sad smile. She had never had a final Pride game to celebrate, and although she hadn't needed one, now she worried maybe Ashlyn, who had done so well for so many months and was still getting even stronger and better, would have a major setback because of her retirement from soccer.

However, Ashlyn was only feeling high.

“No, I'm honestly happy, fulfilled, ready... it feels right,” Ashlyn said sincerely. “I cannot wait to continue to thrive in life with you, to be happy together, to more kids, to more laughter... the best part is only about to start baby.”

Ali was so relieved and she let out a breath that said it all.

“I am so proud of you. You've gotten so far, you're so brave, so _good_.”

“Only because I don't walk this Earth alone. I owe my best to you.”

They were attracted to each other like magnets and before they knew it they were making out, until Dylan left Ali's engorged nipple and burped so hard it startled them and then caused them to laugh.

“Okay, you ruined the mood,” Ashlyn snorted a laugh, caressing their son's cheek. “Burping like an old man already...”

“He does look like an old wise guy at times,” Ali joked, and handed him to Ashlyn. “Here, give your lucky charm a good squeeze and then you're off to showering, I don't want you to be late on your day.”

Ashlyn chuckled and peppered kisses over their son's face, to Ali's enjoyment, but then also hugged her tight with one arm, kissing her on the lips.

“I've got two lucky charms. Lucky me!”

The family drove together to the stadium, with Ashlyn behind the wheel, sunglasses on and a smug expression on her face because she could never grow tired of seeing how her small family would dress to support her. Ali was wearing one of Ashlyn's jerseys together with her rainbow watch and Dylan was swimming in a purple t-shirt with _Harris 24_ written on the back in rainbow letters, black shorts, and purple ear defenders, sleeping in his car seat.

Once at Exploria Stadium, where the Championship Final against the Utah Royals was being held, Ali was allowed into the locker room to salute the team and introduce them to Dylan, who was the most expected guest. Everyone showered the baby in compliments, commenting the striking resemblance to Ashlyn, which Ali encouraged. To her, he was her most handsome boy with his Mama's dimple and smug 'smile' and the same sleeping poses, not to mention the same hair that Ashlyn had with his age.

“Good luck Mama,” Ali kissed Ashlyn before she had to leave the locker.

“Thank you,” Ashlyn kissed them both. “You'll be in the tunnel?”

“Marc invited me to the bench like the old times,” Ali grinned. “But when the game starts I'll go up with the family, they're all in the private watching room we got already.”

“Awesome,” Ashlyn was very excited. “Send them my love.”

“We'll do!”

By the time Captain Harris was standing with her team and their opponent team on the field, saluting the fans, Ali, Dylan and Ashlyn's brother and father were already standing on the edge of the field, ready and applauding proudly as the announcers declared it was time to honour Goalkeeper Ashlyn Harris on her last game ever. Ashlyn handed her gloves and paraphernalia to Sydney, who stood by her side, and walked forward, beaming, to receive a bouquet of flowers from Marc and her framed jersey.

“Thank you for everything Coach,” Ashlyn said hugging him.

“Thank you for sticking around, Fighter.” He smiled and patted her back, posing for the picture.

Then he moved aside and Ashlyn's family came over. Ashlyn hugged them and kissed them and the stadium roared as she held her son up, an arm around her wife, and her family held her other presents for her. For Ashlyn, having her wife in one arm and son in the other was already holding the best gifts she had had. Before Ali could retire, however, Ashlyn retained her, handing her framed jersey and flowers to a Pride intern that would bring them to the lockers.

“Wait,” said Ashlyn, and gestured up with her eyes. Ali frowned confused and then the announcer spoke again.

“Ladies and gentlemen, let's remain standing to honour as well the career of Orlando Pride's former defender, number 11 Ali Krieger...” the voice went on to announce the number of caps and appearances and make a resume of Ali's career, but Ali wasn't listening. She grinned to Ashlyn, surprised, her eyes glassy.

“Baby, you did this for me? But it's your day!”

“It's ours. I wouldn't be here without you Ali. Here they come!”

Ashlyn grinned, getting emotional, as Ali was also granted a framed jersey and the flowers, and suddenly Ali's parents and Kyle appeared, super excited. Ali could not believe it.

Later, in the night and after an exciting win, Ashlyn carefully closed the bedroom door, rushed to the chest of drawers, and pulled out a letter she had been hiding from Ali since she picked the mail in the morning to surprise her big time when they could actually celebrate. She shoved it in the back of her shorts just as Ali came in with Dylan asleep.

“Hi,” Ali smiled. “Can you put him to bed? I want to tidy up in the kitchen a little.”

“Sure,” Ashlyn took him, kissed her cheek, and set him to sleep in his crib.

When Ali finally came back, Ashlyn was in bed, and playfully patted the space next to her, holding Ali close.

“I've got a surprise for you. This came in the post today,” Ashlyn reached underneath her pillow, and pulled out an open letter addressed to both Ali and Ashlyn. Ali looked curious and took the paper from its envelope, reading it. As she read it, her grin grew and grew until she squealed and looked excitedly at Ashlyn with glassy emotional eyes.

“REALLY?” she squeaked out. Ashlyn giggled, nodding. “We've been granted our first adoption! We got our girl!” Ali grinned, bringing Ashlyn in to hug her and kiss her. “Why did you hide this all day?”

“Because I wanted you to know without the stresses of the day. Are you happy?”

“I am... sincerely blessed baby.”

A couple months before, when Dylan was still in Ali's womb, they had met a 2 year old toddler from Egypt, a girl, who needed an adopted family. They had fallen in love with her through a day playing with her in her forest family's house, and then had applied without many hopes, but unexpectedly, now it had been confirmed the judge had chosen them as her new parents. They could pick her up the next day.

They made out, snuggling in bed, the kiss heating, and suddenly interrupted their kiss to stare lovingly at each other, grinning. No words where needed. I love you. I'm proud of you. Thank you for staying, or for helping me stay. Thank you for the life we had. Thank you for being a fighter. Thank you for being a warrior. Life really is better together than they could have ever imagined it apart.

THE END.

**Author's Note:**

> Please remember Fanfic Authors are often unappreciated. Yes, we don't write best sellers, we write for love and we write for free, when we have time, through studies, jobs, life... we write because we love writing, but we CHOOSE to share what we write with you, so the least you can do is show your writers your appreciation. As you can see I spent a whole year writing without necessarily publishing, because like many others, I don't NEED to publish. I do it hoping it'll bring other people the joy it brings me to read and write. But it's up to you to keep updates going, and not make us feel like we might as well keep the work to ourselves. Thank you!


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